Here in New York, it isn't much of a stretch to envision the local nine embarking upon a playoff-caliber season. Seven straight postseason appearances have raised the bar far beyond that measure; a playoff run isn't just hoped for, it's expected by Boss Steinbrenner. The Yankees hunt bigger game(s), and the braintrusts's every major decision is seen through the same filter: "Is this team good enough to win a World Championship?"
Even across town, where they haven't won a World Series since 1986, the bud of optimism (not to be confused with the sport's czar, the Bud of Pessimism) when it comes to the postseason isn't too farfetched. If Mo Vaughn can still hit, if Edgardo Alfonzo regains his form, if Robbie Alomar stays young, and if the rotation holds up... stretches, some of those are, yet at least the players in the mix, and the team itself, have a track record of some success in the not-too-distant past.
But in Kansas City, on the other hand, gloom reigns. For starters, there's the matter of seven straight losing seasons and a last-place finish in the AL Central. And then there's the dismantling of the Royals' nucleus of the few decent hitters they've produced in recent times. In the past two years, the franchise has traded two of its biggest stars--Johnny Damon and Jermaine Dye--as they approached free agency and has gotten crapola in return--a bloated has-been of a closer and a glove man with Coors-inflated hitting stats that weren't very good to begin with. Their marquee free-agent signings this winter are Chuck Knoblauch and Michael Tucker. Manager Tony "Sarge" Muser and GM Allard Baird have witlessly conspired to sabotage the careers of promising players like Mark Quinn, Carlos Beltran, Carlos Febles, Dee Brown... and on and on. Owner David Glass seems poised to keep K.C.'s payroll near the bottom of the league. Pundits like Rob Neyer have stopped pulling their hair out over the Royals' bafflingly stupid ways and gone straight to surrender. It ain't pretty.
But here K.C. Star columnist Joe Posnanski, taking a rose-tinted view of the local K.C. nine, says that the Royals can take the AL Central. A laughable proposition in some quarters, but that's not quite the point. For starters, Posnanski invokes the annual tradition of a predecessor at the Star, a writer named Bill Vaughan, who would write similarly optimistic tomes--back when the team in question was the Athleticsm in the days when their best pitcher was a polio survivor. "...[L]ooking back, I'm not sure he was only joking. He had hope," writes Posnanski. "January does that to crazy baseball fans. It turns us into 10-year-old kids."
Fair enough. I'm sure all of us who came to the game at a similarly young age can remember our vain predictions and predilections. Maybe that schlub of a scrub who signed an autograph when he passed through Triple-A for us would lead the big club to glory. Maybe the young fireballer with lousy control would find the strikezone. Maybe that fan would give Reggie's home run ball back and the Sox could beat the Yanks (as my pal Martin memorably suggested in the Bucky Dent game). Childhood is full of such delusions.
Posnanski points out the weakness of the division (the mighty Indians are no more, as their offseason actions in the wake of John Hart's departure clearly indicate), and then runs down the roster, pointing out the plethora of young K.C. arms poised on the brink of Figuring It All Out. And he does have a point, because in these days of large market vs. small, the development of solid starting pitching is the quickest way toward respectability. Take the A's and the Twins, for example.
Posanski's piece is a breezy read, and it's harmless enough in January. But where he falls short in his optimism is failing to include some kind of coup in the organization's so-called braintrust as a necessary first condition to all of this. Tony Muser is a Terrible Manager, a red-ass who believes that machismo at the plate can repeal a fundamental rule of the game--you have to get on base to score runs. In four and a half years at the Royals' helm, he's managed a .426 winning percentage, with a high of 77 wins. Allard Baird, if it's possible, is an even worse GM, having come up virtually empty in trading two stars (one can only shudder to think of the bounty of broken doorknobs and spoiled fish that awaits them when they trade Mike Sweeney to a contender). Baird's idea of improving the club is trading for Donnie Sadler. Enough said.
Smarter men than myself who are more devoted to the Royals (okay, maybe that cancels out the "smarter" part), such as Rany Jazayerli, have pointed out in painstaking detail some of the Royals' more foolish assumptions. In his most recent column over at Baseball Prospectus, Jazayerli (Rob Neyer's former partner in Royal-watching) weighs K.C.'s claims that they couldn't afford Dye or Damon against the motley (and I don't mean Darryl) assortment of players the Royals "can" afford. He also points out that given the current management's ineptitude, their Triple-A rotation stands a good chance of outpitching their major league one:
"There's definitely something wrong when the best thing that can happen to your pitching staff is for one of your projected starters to go down with an injury so that a better pitcher can take his place. That's what the Royals have brought on themselves. Faced with a choice between gambling on one of their many unproven but highly-touted young pitchers, and a proven veteran--proven only in the sense that he's provably mediocre--the Royals have again taken the safe route. Risk aversion dominates the Royals' philosophy at every turn."
Anyway... ya gotta have hope, I guess. I wholeheartedly support the kind of foolish optimism of late winter which Posnanski invokes, and I don't pretend (or care) to know much about the nuances of the Royals' system. But I do think that if you want to restore some hope to what was once a great baseball town, the first order of business is to hand Muser and Baird a blindfold and a cigarette apiece, and usher in the next phase of K.C. baseball with a bang or two. And if you happen to be a columnist covering the home nine, you're certainly better off leading the coup than sitting on your hands and waiting for it to happen.
Seattle lefty reliever Norm Charlton was recently diagnosed with not just a torn rotator cuff but a torn labrum as well. The former Nasty Boy obviously won't pitch during the 2002 season, and at 39, might finally be done.
This item caught my attention because Charlton put up a strong season with the 2001 Mariners (4-2, 3.02 ERA, .212 Opp. Batting Average) after several years of wandering in the wilderness. From 1997 to 2000, Charlton posted a 6.26 ERA as he bounced from Seattle to Baltimore to Atlanta to Tampa Bay to Cincinnati, setting fire to almost everything he touched. Early in this miserable stretch, I christened him the Arsonist, and the name stuck among my friends. In his previous tour of duty with Seattle, which ended in 1997, Charlton had crashed and burned as a closer (3-8, 14 Saves, 11 Blown Saves, 7.27 ERA). Much to our amusement, it took several Seattle relievers to pick up the slack the following year (Bobby Ayala 1-10, 7.29 ERA), Paul Spoljaric (4-6, 6.48 ERA), Bob Wells (2-2, 6.10 ERA), Heathcliff Slocumb (2-5, 5.32 ERA), and Tony Fossas (0-3, 8.74 ERA). By this time, Charlton was in Baltimore, causing conflagrations so intense Boog Powell might have shut his Barbecue Pit at Camden Yards (2-1, 6.94 ERA).
Shortly after the trading deadline in '98, an item appeared in the New York Times about the Yankees possibly being interested in Charlton. Seizing my muse at this odd bit of news, I composed a lunchtime email rant which I sent to a few friends. I still think is worth a chuckle now that I'm sharing my thoughts about baseball on a much wider plane, so I thought it was topical enough to pass along.
According to today's Times, commenting on the depleted relief corps:
[Yankee GM Brian] Cashman intends to ask other club officials if there is reason to be interested in the free agent reliever NORM CHARLTON, recently released by the Baltimore Orioles.
The following conversation is a dramatic re-enactment of a telephone call that took place at 11:30 AM EST:
"Hello, Brian?"
"Speaking."
"This is Jay Jaffe, a fair-weather Yankee fan and partial season ticket holder."
"Hi, Jay. Nice to meet you. What can I do for you?
"Well, Brian, I must say you guys are really tearing it up this year and I think you've done a great job on the hot seat as GM. Pricing the Big Unit out of the league was a stroke of genius."
"Thanks, that means a lot to me coming from a fan like you."
"Uh huh. Listen, Brian. I'll be straight with you. I know you guys are a little thin in the bullpen, what with Nelson and Holmes on the DL now, but I've just gotta say, you're really tempting fate if you sign Norm Charlton. Are you familiar with the term 'arson'?"
"Arson, yeah, like a guy who sets fires?"
"Exactly. Norm Charlton, he's so awful, my friends and I call him 'the Arsonist.'"
"Wow. That's not exactly a compliment, is it?"
"No Brian, it is not. Are you aware that over the last year and a half, Norm's ERA is 7.17? Brian, my rule of thumb is that if you could mistake a guy's ERA for a Boeing jet, you're better off passing on him. And..."
"Jeez. Is he really that bad?"
"...this year opposing hitters are hitting .305 and slugging .470 against him. His ERA on grass is 8.46..."
"I didn't realize he had a drug problem. That explains..."
"No, no, no. I mean as opposed to Astroturf."
"Oh. Kinda like that story about Tug McGraw where he was asked which he preferred to play on..."
"Yeah, yeah. 'I dunno, I never smoked Astroturf!' Cracks us up all the time."
"Well, look, Jay. I need bullpen help. Not a lot, but just some insurance. And if Norm's not worth it, who else is there? The trading deadline is past."
"Well, Brian, that's the second reason I called. Did you see Jim Bouton pitch at Old-Timer's Day?"
"No, I missed it. The damn sausage line was taking forever. George has got to do something about the vendors in the stadium. You know, I think that may be the key issue which seals this new stadium deal."
"You may be right. Anyway, back to the matter at hand. Bouton got his man out. He's 59, but he's got lots of big game experience. Two World Series for your franchise, a successful comeback at age 39. And he's a knuckleballer. Those guys last friggin' forever. I mean, that's only a couple years older than Phil Niekro was when he was with you guys."
"Hmmm. An unconventional thought, but it's crazy enough that it just might work. Tell you what. Let me bounce it off George and some of the folks here in the front office. I might even call Bob Watson in on this one."
"Good idea, Brian. Bob and Jim go waaay back. Did you know that when Watson was a rookie catcher with the 1969 Astros, he broke his thumb trying to catch Bouton's knuckler?"
"You don't say. Do you think it's a good idea to bring that up?"
"It'll jog Bob's memory, and it's probably healed by now. Water under the bridge, you know. Besides, Bob's probably got more pressing health concerns. That *is* why you're the man in the big chair now, Brian."
"Right. Well, thanks for the advice, Jay. Is it all right if I have Joe Torre or the Zim call you back with regards to this matter?"
"Sure, Brian, no problem. But those guys are smart baseball men. They know about the Arsonist and what he'd mean to the franchise: instant disaster. You'd be the latest trophy on George's wall, and I don't mean as in 'World Series'. Right up there next to Billy and Yogi and Gene Michael and poor Dick Howser and Buck Showalter and... you get the idea. Oh and one more thing: word on poor Norm last year was that he was tipping his pitches. Batters knew what was coming."
"Holy shit! You don't say...."
----------------------------
Yes, well... Anyway, for all the derision I heaped upon the Arsonist when he was going bad, he showed a considerable amount of resolve by working his way back to being a serviceable pitcher. I salute him for that, and wish him the best if he and when he tries to make it back.
But just the same, I'm checking the fire extinguishers.
I seem to have won an award given out by a website called Sports Central. While it's not quite the same as Ed McMahon coming to my door with an oversized check, I am honored to be ANYBODY's site of the week (and now, the Unemployed Yankee Fans of Greater New York present their award for Most Trenchant Criticism of the Yankees' Glut of Futility Infielders...). Sports Central seems to be a pretty interesting opinion and discussion forum site dealing with all sports, not just baseball. The baseball stuff is pretty good, what I've read of it. This week's column deals with the Gary Sheffield trade and what it says about the power relationship between petulant star players and their teams. Worth a read.
Hot on the heels of my two-part feature about ballplayers named Jay comes my induction of Jay Buhner into my Wall of Fame. Buhner was a classy ballplayer who I'll miss every bit as much as the Yankees who recently departed. Readers of the series will quickly recognize that I've shamelessly repurposed much of the information for Buhner's page, but I've provided a bonus of sorts by examining the man at the other end of the Yankees' infamous trade of Buhner, Ken Phelps.
