About the Royals and the Silver Lining

Can the Royals find a silver lining? In the Old Days we would try to pick how many games it would take to win "The West" (At that time). Would 90 games be enough and so on.

We have no problem with the Royals being a factor this year. They won't be! Their magic number is probably "68"(a guess). The winner of the central division will probably reach 87 wins(Pathetic).

Oh, about the silver lining - don't you build championships with pitching and defense? For the last decade we have hardly had an outstanding player of the game much less an outstanding phase of the game within the Royals. This year starting pitching looks great.

Believing you can add an adequate relief corps short term that leaves defense. Here is where I fault management at all levels. It seems that the lack of understanding or execution of defensive fundamentals is rampant for a pro team. Lack of a set lineup, despite the injuries, again have contributed to a general overall happy go lucky "I am not accountable" attitude. This has spread to the base coaches and rests on the shoulders of the manager. Would I fire the two base coaches and trade DeJesus and Tehan to get everybody's attention? Maybe.

Hindsight is easy. We can look back and set the lineups and pick individuals for defensive savey and not take into account offensive skills, righty, lefty etc. as there has been no exhibition of offensive skills from the team.

So again the silver lining -

I believe good teams take over at the end of the season - after the all star break. Dispite a 10 game losing streak, our strengths are better in the second half with this team. I believe our starting pitching will hold and our offense will arrive(relative to our available lineup). Last year was so much better than the past few years. I believe we have the first element of a championship team.

Add 3 "men" (hitters), get healthy, focused and away we go! We thought we had the "men" added this year and it did not happen. I would trade away our sacred cows to get to this - most likely DeJesus, Tehan or Butler or all three. No I am not nuts, I put Butler's name in there to reflect a focus on where we must be vesus any sensitivity to where we are now. Build on the pitching, add some relief and concentrate on finding 3 good men (additional hitters).

Doing nothing? Well that means the offense of the Royals will either have to wake up, get well or have career years. Not a high percentage choice in my book although - we can look at a number of $100 million payrolls without championships showing lineups we would not and should exchange with.

We are on the right track. Our hardest piece is in place with terrific young starting pitchers. We have to deal with two physical needs, hitting and relief pitching and one major mental or attitude issue - playing with focus - manager experience (maybe confidence) is weak on this last point.

So how many games will it take to win the division in 2010 - my guess is 92; 92 -94 in 2011. Our Royals can do 82 - 85; but to quote the Cub's fan "wait until 2012!"