Wednesday, June 01, 2005

« Royals: Last place, but extremely promising »

By Suss
They're 14-37. What good can come from this team?

Buddy BellThe Royals fired manager Tony Pena and brought in Buddy Bell (pictured right), someone many baseball guys consider to be a great guy. He's managed before and now has a chance to develop a young team into a contender down the road.

This team's done for the season. Their lone All Star from 2004, Ken Harvey, is out for the year. Few have heard of 90 percent of the team, or at least can say "Oh, so that's where he went" of people like Joe McEwing, Matt Stairs and Tony Graffanino.

But they beat the piping hot Yankees last night, and as of this blog post are beating up on the aforementioned (below mentioned?) Randy Johnson 3-0 in mid-game. So they're on a roll by Kansas City standards. Bell might even be undefeated this year by the end of the day.

But even if they rattled off 23 more wins in a row (highly unlikely), they would only be .500 and probably several games behind Chicago.

They can treat this season as a learning experience for all these young players. Bell has no pressure to play regulars if they are not performing. He won't even hesititate to send a slumping everyday player to AAA. Since he was a former third baseman himself, he can help out their young hot corner man, 23-year-old Mark Teahen. (And correct me if I'm wrong, but there's another great Royal who played third base a while back ... give me a minute on this one ... I think his name was George something ... Brett? Yeah, I think that's him.)

And, lo and behold, Brett is the VP of baseball operations in Kansas City. Something tells me they have the right personnel and talent to make this team a competitor in 2007. They can only hope Mike Sweeney wants to be part of another rebuilding year. So far he's heard from teammates like Brian Anderson that bell is a phenomenal coach. If nothing else it's another guaranteed All-Star selection for him.