Why the Royals Suck (and a new blog series too)

A new blog series entitled “Mock Drafts that Mock People” starts tomorrow with Joel. Until then, I have a story to share. It looks long, but it reads fast. I promise.

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While I was sick this weekend, I spent some time commenting on the game threads at Royalsreview.com. Somewhere in the middle of the game, a guy named “NYRoyal” pointed out that commenters seemed to always default on glass half-empty, trade everyone because they suck mode far more frequently than responding with irrational hope. To help feed into this, I made some comment about how we should trade Leo Nunez after he gave up two runs in an inning. He took it as a joke. But what followed was not very funny. Read on…

NYRoyal: Leo Nunez will be another Jim Pittsley. Release him now!!!!!

Jbrocato (random idiot): I’d be impressed if he were as good as Pittsley. And to think the Royals traded their last decent catcher for him.

NYRoyal: Are we talking about the same Pittsley? The one who never had a single decent major league season? Nunez is 10 times better than Pittsley and has already shown that. If he ended up being a mediocre relief pitcher in the majors, he’d be 8 times better than Pittsley.

Jbrocato: At least the Royals didn’t trade a decent catcher for Pittsley. The catcher spot has been a black hole ever since Santiago was traded (and frankly I don’t care whether or not Santiago used steroids).

BlownSave (That’s me! I’m also a random idiot.): What?!?!?!?!?! Santiago was 39 and played a whole 49 games for the Royals. I’d take Buck over a 40 year old Santiago (and I’m not a big Buck fan).

NYRoyal: (To Jbrocato) You’re joking right? Santiago was awful. He was awful and then after the Royals traded him to Pittsburgh, he played all of six games. He hasn’t played since. He’s out of baseball. You really feel bad that we traded away the 40 year old schlub who stunk for the Royals and was about to retire? That trade was an absolute steal for the Royals.

Jbrocato: Revisionist history. Santiago hit .274 for the Royals (Buck has NEVER hit over .245), 6 HR, and 23 RBIs in only 175 Abs. Had he not been hit by a pitch, that pro-rates to .274 with 18 HR. I’d take that from a catcher any day, whether he’s 40 or 22.

NYRoyal: He was 39………………..39! The man’s career was just about over. The Royals did an amazing job to get anything for him at all. And to their credit, they got a talented young pitcher for him who should definitely be able to contribute to a major league team. How much is any 39 year old catcher worth? Damned little. If they had kept him, they would have maybe gotten one crappy season out of him.

There is absolutely no sane, reasonable argument to be made that the Royals didn’t make out like bandits on the Santiago/Nunez trade.

BlownSave: Buck hit 18 HRs last year in 2/3s a season and he’s entering his prime. Let’s say we kept Santiago and didn’t trade him. He would have played six more games with us in 2005 and then would have been out of baseball. How would that have solved anything at the catching position for 2006-2008?

Jbrocato: Buck also hit .222 last year. How is .222 by Buck better than .274 by Santiago? I have seen Buck do one thing well with the Royals – run his big mouth about blaming Buddy Bell for his lack of hitting. Buck didn’t hit before Bell came to the Royals, either. His whining showed that not only is he an out machine, but he has no class, either. Perhaps the Royals would have kept Santiago longer than six games. The Pirates aren’t exactly baseball’s model franchise. As for return, Nunez has a career ERA of 5.77, including a 7.55 the year he pitched the most innings. Granted that’s not as Kyle Davies, but still pretty bad.

BlownSave: Who would you suggest be our catcher?

Nunez had a sub 4 ERA with a near 4:1 K:BB last season and will be 24 (24!) this season. He was 21 the year he had the 7+ ERA you’re complaining about.

Buck was hitting .288 at the beginning of June before falling off. Who’s to say that would not have happened to Santiago? Also, Buck was being sat for a guy who hit .148 last year. Wouldn’t you be a little upset by that when you’re leading the team in home runs?

NYRoyal: It’s the curse of the Benito. The baseball gods have been smiting the Royals for the past three years because they traded Santiago away instead of keeping him and throwing him a really kick ass retirement party.

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So now you know why the Royals have sucked so bad recently – they traded Santiago for Nunez. It makes so much sense!
Also, from here on out, it must be remembered that Santiago is not only the best catcher ever to put on a Royals uniform, but also the best Royal and MLB (not the video game, Andrew, the real Major Leagues) player in the history of the world. Remember this or die.