Tag: Kansas City Royals (Page 10 of 14)

A sweep in Texas! Let the long beleagured Royals Nation rejoice!¹ Because winning two road games against the best team in baseball in May always means good things for the rest of the season, right?

Sarcasm aside, the brief Texas series was fun, and came at a great time following the news that Danny Duffy is the latest Royals pitcher to rip his elbow apart. Bruce Chen was fantastic Monday night while Vin Mazzaro was decent and Tim Collins absolutely filthy Tuesday. Jarrod Dyson is getting on base a lot, and scoring when he does. Mike Moustakas is ripping the ball. Francouer might be coming alive, Escobar got some big hits, and Hosmer finally got a couple to drop in.

The Texas sweep, combined with winning two-of-three in Chicago over the weekend, doesn’t wipe out the 12-game losing streak of April. But it does remind us of how fickle baseball is. If the Royals had just gone .500 during that losing streak, today they’d be 21-14 and in first place in the AL Central. This still isn’t a first place club, not with a rotation that features two replacements for starters on the DL and Luke Hochevar taking up another slot. This mini-hot streak, though, has put some life back into the season, which the team, and fans, sorely needed.

Horrible news on Duffy. The good news is he’s still young, most pitchers come back just fine from Tommy John surgery, and if he has to miss a year, it might as well be now before the contention window opens. And let’s be honest: most Royals fans figured he, Mike Montgomery, Jake Odorrizi, etc. would end up blowing an elbow or shoulder eventually. Such is life as a Royals fan.

Speaking of Odorrizi, he and the amazing Wil Myers were called up to Omaha today. With the injuries and inconsistency that plagues the big league rotation, Odorrizi just might be in KC before the season is over. And it’s great seeing Myers reclaim his spot as one of the best hitting prospects in the game. It’s not completely ridiculous to imagine a lineup with him, Moose, Hos, Gordon, Butler, and Perez filling six of the nine lineup spots next year.

And I must give props: Chris Getz has not been completely horrible this year. It’s early and I’m not climbing on any bandwagons or anything. I’ve lobbied hard for Getz to be run out of town, so it’s only fair I credit him with getting some nice hits in key situations.

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Before I begin, I’d like to point out that my generic prediction for the 2012 Royals was that this season would be disappointing. This, though, is not what I had in mind.

Ten straight losses, nine at home. Starters who can’t get out of jams. Relievers who throw gas on the fire. Hitters that can’t climb out of holes. Baserunners who make bad decision after bad decision. Curious managerial decisions.

Let’s face it, this has been a complete team effort to suck.

It is times like these where the life of a modern baseball fan can be tough. I love that we are in an era when you can live away from your favorite team, but thanks to MLB.TV, Twitter, and dozens of baseball blogs, it’s like you’re right there with them. The Twitter side, especially, has been tough to take as the Royals have sunk deeper and deeper. There are so many smart observers of the team who, as soon as something goes wrong, start looking for ledges to climb onto. There are so many otherwise rational humans who, having lived through the last two decades of Royals baseball, see a losing streak, attach 20 years of failure to it, and become incredibly negative. It’s easy to get sucked into that attitude and believe that this season is lost and the “promise” of the franchise is just another false start.

It doesn’t help that the team hasn’t done much to make us want to believe.

My personal nadir has been a return to a hobby of my past: wondering what team I would follow should the Royals be contracted. I must admit, for all the negativity on Twitter, I haven’t seen too many others start considering the C word.

One other thing that’s been tough about the new season is breaking in the new announcers, Steve Physioc and Rex Hudler. It’s always hard to get used to new announcers and their mannerisms and quirks. But these two started with two strikes knowing they were fired by the Angels and pretty much reviled by much of the online baseball community. Physioc had a reputation as being lazy and not knowing the game. Hudler, the eternal optimist, is in/famous for spouting cliches and banal observations.

I can’t say that a couple weeks of baseball has made me like them. Physioc is as advertised. Much of the time it feels like he’s just reading out of the media guide. Sometimes it seems like he’s not watching the game that closely and stumbles over names or plays because he was looking at his scorecard or checking his notes. It gets worse when he switches to radio and shares the call with Bob Davis, who continues to be awful yet somehow keeps a job. For some reason the baseball Gods don’t think Royals fans have been tortured enough and throw that duo at us.

Hudler means well, but so much of what he says is weightless fluff. You can tell he’s trying to get to know this team, and some of the lightness of his comments is based on that. But I don’t think he’s going to morph into a great analyst once he is more familiar with the Royals’ roster.

The weird thing about the new guys is they’ve made me appreciate Ryan Lefebrve, who I’ve never really liked. I wouldn’t say I’ve become a fan of his, but at least I’m comfortable with his style. He and Hudler seem to have zero chemistry right now, and the little sarcastic barbs Ryan throws out, and Rex’s clueless responses to them, have been one of the few fun things this season.

I know it’s too early to panic. This team wasn’t supposed to win this year. But this was supposed to be a step towards contending in 2013. Perhaps it still will be. Perhaps they rebound and make this season respectable. Perhaps the knocks they take this year will help them start off strong next year. Maybe the holes that are apparent in the rotation will force Dayton Moore to make some bold moves next winter to put the team in a better position to compete.

Still, it would be nice if they could at least flirt with .500 and make our hope in the future not seem completely misguided.

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One lousy game can change everything.

The Royals were looking good Wednesday afternoon. They got another strong performance from a starting pitcher. Alex Gordon finally got off the schnide, getting two hits including a home run. Billy Butler had gone deep for the second time this year. The bullpen was nails for six innings. And there they were, going into the bottom of the 12th with a one-run lead and a 4-2 season-opening road trip three outs away.

Error.
Walk.
Walk.
Ground out, tying run scores.
HBP.
HBP.

Game over.

There will be a lot of excitement at Kaufman stadium Friday as the Royals open their home schedule. But that excitement will be tempered just a bit by Wednesday’s loss. For as much progress as the team has made, that sure felt like a “same old Royals” loss.

It pointed out another interesting argument about baseball, too. The stat-head community insists you should never waste money on a closer. Pick your best reliever, put him in that role, and if he becomes expensive, let him move on and try someone else. They are too volatile in the short term, too fragile in the long term, the argument goes. And for a team that isn’t contending, the need for an elite closer is minimal.

I tend to agree with that idea, yet these blown saves hurt. If they hurt this much for fans, how must they feel to the team? If this starts happening once a week or more, as it seemed to do often to the Royals in the 2000s, I’m not sure it doesn’t have a bigger effect on a team than just the L’s.

Which is what makes these arguments so fascinating. Logic makes me lean one direction. But real world events make me lean another.

Hopefully this won’t be a season-long theme.

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Six wins in four weeks. ¹ Four of those wins came in their final at bat. It appears the Royals may indeed suck this year. You can feel the enthusiasm waning as frustrated fans mutter “Same old Royals.”

Danny Duffy can’t throw strikes. Joakim Soria looked lost (but may have been found). Alcides Escobar can’t hit and Ned Yost refuses to pinch hit for him late in games. Outfielders let fly balls drop. Base runners fail to move up. Maybe they are the same old Royals.

For this week’s baseball post, instead of focusing on the Royals I want to write about my current baseball man-crush, Adrian Gonzalez.

Every so often there is a roster move that everyone sees coming years in advance. It was no surprise when Scott Rolen left the Phillies for the Cardinals. He grew up in Southern Indiana² in a family of Cardinals fans. It wasn’t a matter of if but when he would become a Card.

The Red Sox have openly coveted Adrian Gonzalez for years. As each of the last two trading deadlines approached, experts wondered if San Diego would cave and send him to Boston during the season. It didn’t really matter, because the Red Sox were expected to spare no expense in signing him if he eventually hit the free agent market.

The trade finally happened last off-season, and the low key, smooth swinging Gonzalez was a big reason why most people picked the Red Sox to win the World Series.

Things didn’t go as planned, initially. The Red Sox were awful early and Gonzalez didn’t set the world on fire in the first few weeks of the season. But he settled in, began hitting, and soon the rest of his teammates followed. Boston is now in first place in the AL East, despite some pitching woes and several players who aren’t hitting as well as expected.

Gonzalez is a joy to watch. He’s the ultimate combination of professional hitter and superstar, his easy going manner making you forget what a monster talent he is. He can crush home runs and shoot a ball the opposite way with equal ease. He exudes calm. While the term clutch has largely been debunked by stat heads, he sure seems to get a lot of big hits at important times. He looks like he’s having fun on the field. And no one says a bad word about him.

Some wondered if he could transition from ultra-laid back San Diego to high intensity Boston. So far, that hasn’t been an issue. He leads the league in hits, RBIs, and total bases, and has an OPS+ of 157. For people who don’t follow the numbers, that means he is pretty damn good.

It’s a lot harder to like the Red Sox than it was a decade ago. Their fans have become insufferable after finally getting the 86-year monkey off their backs. They spend almost as much money as the Yankees. A contract like Daisuke Matsuzaka’s would have crippled most organizations, but the Red Sox have still been able to resign Josh Beckett, David Ortiz, and JD Drew and nab Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, and John Lackey despite Dice K’s massive deal.

I try to avoid Red Sox games whenever possible these days. But if I know Adrian Gonzalez is coming to bat soon and the Red Sox are on, I make sure I catch his plate appearance.

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You would think I learned my lesson already. I was unreasonably excited about Josh Selby’s arrival at KU last fall, and downright giddy the day he debuted against USC. That didn’t work out so well, after the first five games or so.

Four years ago, I was pumped for Alex Gordon’s arrival in Kansas City. That excitement quickly disappeared and did not return until this season, when Gordon seems to have finally figured things out. ¹

Yet, there I was Friday night, giddy again over a young kid with a lot of potential. This time it was Eric Hosmer, the first baseman called up by the Royals on Thursday. We’ve heard the raves for months and now, at least a month ahead of schedule, here he was in the Majors.

I wasn’t the only one. 10,000 people bought tickets to Friday’s game after Hosmer got promoted. The crowd stood at saluted him during every at bat that night. Each time he made contact over the weekend, the anticipatory roar was a little louder than normal. When he cracked a deep drive off the top of the fence Sunday, radio announcer Ryan Lefebvre’s voice rose an extra level or two, conveying the drama of the moment. One Royals blogger even wrote that Hosmer would “probably” hit his first home run this week, into the short right field porch at Yankee Stadium. Imagine that, assuming a rookie up less than a week will go to Yankee Stadium and hit his first homer, and it doesn’t seem completely crazy.

You can excuse us for being excited. It’s been a long, slow, well-documented slog from the 1985 World Series, Bo Jackson’s arrival in 1986, and those last few years of contention before the 1994 season ended early. There have been few moments of hope since then.

Johnny Damon arrived with some hype, and even did a famous commercial with George Brett. But I don’t remember people thinking he would turn the franchise around by himself. The Royals did all they could to get rid of Mike Sweeney before he finally earned a chance to play. Carlos Beltran arrived with Carlos Febles, and it was more about Dos Carlos than Beltran that season. Alex Gordon was the Can’t Miss Kid and people were excited about him, but he was a singular talent rather than the beginning of a wave of prospects like Hosmer. And Gordon sucked from his first at-bat.

Thus, I think it’s safe to say no Royal has ever arrived with as much hype, with as much anticipation, with as much pressure as Hosmer. It’s asking a lot for a 21-year-old to immediately become the face of the franchise, it’s best player, and the leader in the clubhouse. But it feels like that’s what is expected of him.

Based on his first few games, it looks like he’s both worthy of the hype and capable of dealing with it. His approach at the plate is unlike any Royal prospect I can remember. The guys who came up under Tony Muser were famous for hacking at the first hittable pitch they saw. Gordon had gigantic holes in his swing and couldn’t help but swing when the pitcher attacked those spots. Tuesday night, Hosmer watched six pitches go by without swinging, calmly earning a walk with a runner on late in the game.² No way would Damon, Sweeney, Beltran, or Gordon have been patient enough to keep their bats on their shoulders in that situation.

I think Hosmer is indeed different than all those others. And it helps that he will be joined by more hitters and a lot of pitchers in the next couple years. It isn’t just up to him, or the offense, to turn the franchise around. Based on his demeanor, I think he’s prepared and comfortable to be the first one up.

I just hope my giddiness isn’t misguided. Again.

Update: I wrote most of this during the day on Wednesday. Wednesday night, Hosmer did what was expected: crushed a pitch into deep right field for his first Major League home run. A few hours later his sacrifice fly plated the winning run in an 11-inning win over the Yankees. So far, so good.

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So there I was, sitting on my couch, watching Luke Hochevar mow down Cleveland batter after Cleveland batter¹ Wednesday night and, for a few moments, I thought history was unfolding on my TV. The first 15 batters Hochevar faced failed to reach base. He was commanding every pitch beautifully. He and Matt Treanor seemed to have a solid plan of attack. Even when a Cleveland batter made contact, the ball flew directly to a Royals fielder.

Could this be it? Could this be a no-hitter, or even more amazingly, a perfect game?

I was thinking of this during the bottom of the fifth inning, and wondering if I should send a few messages out to other Royals fans to make sure they were watching. Was it too early? Would I jinx Hochevar? I decided to wait and see if he got through the sixth inning and then I would send out a message.

Good thing I waited.

In classic Hochevar form, he gave up a hit then quickly balked a runner to second. Fifteen minutes later, he had given up four more hits, walked a batter, balked in a run, and went to the dugout down 4-2.

Another strange chapter in the recent history of the Royals. We’ll see if this is a sign that the good start to the 2011 season is an aberration or if they can sustain their solid play deeper into the season. My money is on the former, but you never know.

Despite expecting this to be another horrible season for the Kansas City Nine, you can’t help but hope that maybe everybody was wrong when they play .600+ ball over the first three weeks of the season. Regression is expected, but what if Alex Gordon really has turned a corner in his career? What if Jeff Francoeur can continue to make contact and show a bit of patience at the dish? What if the front four of the pitching staff can continue to offer five, six, seven quality innings each time they take the hill? Maybe, just maybe, in a division as weak as the AL Central, they can hang around. And maybe, just maybe, when Eric Hosmer is ready he can add something in June or July. And maybe, just maybe, at least one of the young arms will be prepared to come plug that hole in the back of the rotation. And maybe, just maybe, a break or two here and there will fall the Royals way and this can become a true stepping stone for the 2012 season?

That’s what makes baseball fun. You can dream about the possibilities a long season offers.

Sadly, those are a lot of maybes. The bullpen already seems to be cooling off from its fast start. There are still holes in the lineup, and too many runners are being left on base at the end of each inning. But the 2011 season doesn’t look, at least at this point, like it’s going to be a total disaster. And for Royals fans, believe it or not, that’s progress.

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The first concrete sign of spring has arrived. Pitchers and catchers are reporting to Florida and Arizona! This long, bitter, bitch of a winter is on her last legs!

Spring training always brings a burst of excitement. This year I’m a little extra excited because this could finally be the beginning of the end of the Royals long spell of sucking. This season should be ugly and hard and full of frustration. But that seems like the last piece of suffering we will have to go through before things finally begin to turn around next season.

We should see the first of the highly touted prospects stacked in the system arriving in Kansas City just as summer begins to take hold. By the end of the season, if all goes right, a handful of them will have collected a couple hundred plate appearances or few dozen innings out of the bullpen and begun to earn their Major League stripes. Next year will bring more new faces. The hope, confirmed by the opinions of some of the most respected talent evaluators around the game, is that 2013 will be the season when the Royals should expect to win with a roster made mostly of 20-somethings grown in the organization’s farm system.

Why get excited when winning is, at best, still three seasons away? Especially when we’ve been promised youth movements before and continued to see 90 and 100 loss seasons. Simple: this one feels different. The Royals had a batch of good arms in the system in the late 90s, but they either didn’t pan out or the organization ruined them along the way. A few years later a bunch of bats followed, and while many of them worked out (Damon, Sweeney, Beltran, and Dye who arrived in a trade), there was little else around them. They could hit and make a game exciting, but you generally knew they’d find a way to lose a lot of 10-8 games. And then they all left.

This time, though, there are bats and arms. And plenty of each. It’s not just one pitcher or one hitter that we’re pinning our hopes to. There is a broad core around which a team can be built. Sure, there are still holes that will need to be plugged. But the secondary hope is that with all this cheap, young talent the Royals will have a lot of money to spend on proven MLB talent to address those holes. The wealth of talented young players and a weak division, the thinking goes, would make Kansas City a very attractive destination for free agents.

There are dozens of assumptions and hopes and wishes based on potential and possibility rather than known facts in there, obviously. But after so long of being so bad, it feels like this is the time that believing again makes sense.

So I’m pumped up about spring training this year. I’m anxious to hear how Moustakas and Hosmer and Colon and Cain and Escobar and Lamb and Duffy and Collins and Crow and all the other minor leaguers do in camp. I’m hopeful one or two of those guys might surprise and be ready to go north with the Major League club in April. And then I’m excited about what this summer will bring. I’ll be following the developments in Omaha and Northern Arkansas and the various A level team locations as closely as I’ll follow how things go at the K.

Two years from now I may hate myself for believing again, for getting so excited about unproven talent. But right now, it’s making baseball interesting and fun again.

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Finally, it happened. And again I went to bed about 20 minutes too early and missed the immediate buzz.

The Royals sent Zack Greinke (and Yuniesky Betancourt) to Milwaukee for a package of four young players. When I worked through my Twitter feed Sunday morning, I was flooded with news of the trade. First were the rumors, which began just after I went to bed Saturday night. As I caught up to real time, the news was getting locked in. Within half an hour, the trade was confirmed by multiple sources. Again, we live in a crazy age for disseminating and gathering information.

My first reaction was shock. Milwaukee had never been mentioned by those in the know, or even those not in the know who were willing to hazard a guess. It was always Texas, Toronto, and the Yankees as the most likely trade partners, with Atlanta, Washington, and the Dodgers listed as other teams who could get involved. Where the hell did the Brewers come from?

Me second reaction was confusion. Who the hell were these guys the Royals were getting in return? Had Dayton Moore pulled off a coup, had he done about as good as he could do, or was this the latest trade in which the Royals got nothing back for their best trading chip? Thus, I relied on what the Twitterati were saying. Early returns were not good for the Royals. Opinion seemed to be Moore didn’t get enough back for a 27-year-old Cy Young winner who had four plus pitches and a favorable contract. But I wanted to hear what Rany Jazayerli said before I got depressed.

When Rany did check in, he thought the four players the Royals brought in had their merits. Kevin Goldstein loved the talent the Royals got. Keith Law hated it.

What the hell was I supposed to think?

After reading dozens of articles about the trade, my third reaction holds: I don’t think the Royals got enough in return for Greinke. If you’re going to trade your franchise centerpiece exclusively for prospects and players with limited time in the Majors, at least one of those should be a sure-thing, can’t-miss, gem-of-the-organization type player. None of the new Royals fit that bill. If you want MLB talent in return for your ace, you should be getting someone else who has All-Star potential. None of the new Royals fit that bill, either.

It feels like Dayton Moore panicked a bit and forgot he was dealing from a position of strength, both in terms of Greinke’s contract status and the depth of talent already in the Royals’ minor league system. Sure, Greinke announced last week he wanted out of Kansas City. Fine. Work the, ahem, process. To be fair, maybe Dayton did talk to a bunch of teams and Milwaukee had the best offer of talent and an agreement from Greinke to go there. But at least one source said there were other teams who would have liked the chance to talk to Moore and see if they could beat Milwaukee’s offer. Use the off-season, play other organizations off each other, and get the best possible package of talent.

I’m disappointed. I’m disappointed the Royals lost the face of their franchise, yet again. I’m disappointed that it seems like, yet again, they did not get an adequate return in the exchange.

But I’ll reserve final judgement. The Royals weren’t going to win this year. Now they’re going to suck ass this year. But one, maybe two of the minor league prospects will go north with the team this March. A couple more might come up over the course of the season. A couple more could make their debuts in September. Spring training 2012 should be an exciting time when this much-hyped flood of talent hits the shores. Maybe the Royals didn’t get a star from Milwaukee Sunday. But perhaps they got enough pieces that, with what they already have on the farm, they can field a team that can contend in two or three years.

These are the Royals, though. I’m not holding my breath.

Update (9:45 AM, Dec. 20): Poz has weighed in. He may have wiped out any optimism I had left.

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For some reason, I get crazy about baseball in the off-season. Perhaps it is because in baseball, an active off-season can transform a franchise. There is always that hope that perhaps the Royals might make an interesting, intelligent signing or trade that could put the post-season within reach. Or maybe it’s the drama of how the rich teams will divide up all the free agent talent, wondering who will find the right mix of performance for dollars and actually benefit from all their spending. And the non-baseball fan will probably say it’s because baseball is boring and the only time it’s really interesting is when rosters are changing.

Whatever. When it gets cold, I miss baseball. I read all the free agent and trade rumors ravenously. I daydream about summer nights listening to a game on the radio (or, um, my iPhone I guess). I contemplate finally, after nearly 40 years, buying Strat-o-Matic and spending my winter nights recreating games.

This is the rare off-season when the Royals are players, although, unfortunately as sellers rather than buyers. As I wrote a few weeks ago, if they can get the right return, I think you have to trade Zack Greinke. I don’t like it, but at this point his value is as much about what he can bring in a trade as what he brings on the mound. I’ve been constantly checking the various rumors sites to see what the latest on Greinke is. It seems like nothing will happen until Cliff Lee signs, if Dayton Moore is smart. But this is Dayton Moore we’re talking about, so he’s liable to pull the trigger two days too early.

I was disappointed by the Jeff Francoeur signing. Mr. Newman in Brookside pointed out that at the dollars involved, it’s not a terrible move. Truth is I can’t get too worked up about it. Francoeur is not a good player. There’s little reason to believe that he will recapture whatever mojo he had when he first came up with the Braves. But his contract doesn’t wreck the Royals’ payroll or keep a more deserving prospect off the field. I’ve been conditioned so long to expect a horrible signing or trade for Francoeur, that it’s tough to see any good in his arrival.

And then Dayton went out and got Melky Cabrera. OK…not sure how to react to that at all. Another former Brave (although he didn’t come up with the Braves like Francoeur did) who has limited skills and value. Another mediocre outfielder for a team that has plenty of those already. I’m not seeing the need for Cabrera. Some have pointed out this could mean the end of Alex Gordon’s time in KC, but why sign Cabrera now if you’re thinking of moving Alex? No one else was going to snatch Melky up. Let him sit, make the Gordon trade, and then sign him. Some of whatever value Gordon has just withered up since the Royals have to move someone now.

Oh well, it’s not like the Royals were going to win anything in 2011 anyway. It would just be nice if the moves that Moore made were more than thoroughly predictable stop-gaps that involved guys who have rolled through Atlanta.

Getting away from the Royals, I went to bed about 20 minutes too early last night. When I woke this morning and refreshed Twitter, I saw that the Red Sox had locked up Carl Crawford. I miss the days when Boston was a reasonable alternative for all of us Yankee-haters. I liked them a lot better when they had Manny and Pedro and then a bunch of normal contracts. While they still spent a lot of money, they were clearly not in the stratosphere with the Yankees. Now, it’s those two in a level clearly above the other big market teams. If Bud Selig wants to expand the playoffs, how about putting the Red Sox and Yankees in their own division, with only one getting to the playoffs each year? They can play each other 60 or so times a year, which will make ESPN and Fox happy. And then there’s no chance that Tampa wins the East and some West team sneaks into the Wild Card and we’re forced to somehow deal with a post-season that lacks the Big Two.

Oh, and expanding the playoffs is dumb. Very dumb. On every level dumb, from what it does to the post-season to the refusal to shift/shorten the regular season to accommodate it. As a child of the expansion era, I’m a big fan of the league championship series concept. But the way things are going, I’m beginning to fall into line with those who say to scrap the modern system, get rid of all the divisions, and go back to two leagues playing for a single playoff spot in the World Series.

Yes, I am becoming a grumpy old man.

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No Royals posts for a few weeks. I can’t imagine why that would be the case.

July was the month when my interest finally waned. I listened to bits and pieces of a few games, but rarely tuned in for more than an inning or two. I never fired up MLB.TV.* I even quit paying attention to when Greinke was pitching because chances are I would just get pissed that he could go out and throw 7+ innings of two-run ball and still either lose or pick up an ND at best. I do know Billy Butler is breaking out in a big MFing way. Sadly no one else has joined him this summer.

(Is Split back yet?)

Then Tuesday came perhaps the ultimate insult. Alex Gordon was sent to Omaha. That alone wasn’t so bad. I think it’s time to push the reset button on both this season and Alex’s career. Send him down, take the pressure off, maybe finish up the season strong and be ready for next spring and what should be a make-or-break season for him.

No, the insult was that taking his place on the roster was Kyle Farnsworth.

The next George Brett was sent to AAA to make room for Kyle Mutherfreaking, Homerungivingup, gameblowing, Farnsworth.

If this isn’t the worst, most disappointing season ever, I don’t know what it.

I have tried to keep my baseball interest going, though. I’ve been searching for a team to adopt for the rest of the season. Not to bandwagon, necessarily, but more to pay attention to a team that is playing meaningful games. A team to listen to and/or watch in the evenings and then look to their box score first in the mornings. Something, anything, to help me forget the Yankees are running away with the AL East.

Back in late June I toyed with doing a different team each week in an effort to broaden my MLB knowledge. I must admit aside from the Royals and the big market teams, my understanding of big league rosters isn’t nearly as comprehensive as it was 20 years ago. But each Sunday I would forget to pick a team and Monday morning I would tell myself, “I’ll start next week.” That never happened.

Then I thought about just picking a team to follow through the pennant races. I’ve been listening to Bill Simmons’ podcasts and he keeps raving about going to Dodger Stadium and hinting that if he ever needed to pick a second team, the Dodgers would be a tempting target. So I thought about the Dodgers for a couple weeks. They have Manny. Some good young players, solid pitching. But in the end they seemed too convenient and bandwagony.

So I’ve just been following the races and looking for a team that might have some sex appeal. The Cardinals could be that team, with Pujols, Holliday, and the rejuvenated Carpenter. They shouldn’t be in first but they’re stretching their lead out. Still, I’ve had a long and difficult relationship with the Cards. On the one hand, I admire their history and have enjoyed all my trips to St. Louis to watch a game over the years. But, as a Kansas City native, I have some built-in distrust of the ‘Lou. Much like St. Louis is always trying to measure up to and feels looked down upon by Chicago, there’s a similar vibe between Missouri’s two biggest cities. We Kansas Citians tend to believe that St. Louisians either don’t care about us or are simply patronizing us. Thus the Cardinals are out, although I hope they hang on. Pujols is a KC guy, after all.

A weird candidate has presented itself in recent weeks. The Florida Marlins. They’re in the running for odd reasons. They’re young, talented, and building towards another title run in a couple years. They’re hanging around in the wild card race. And it seems like the MLB Network is always breaking into their games and something interesting happens. But what I like most about the Marlins is that they have to have the smallest fan base in the majors. Here they are, eight games over .500, 4.5 games back in the division, 2.5 back in the wild card, and no one is ever at their games. If I lived in Miami I could always get a great seat to watch one of the youngest, most exciting teams in the league. And there would be something special about being there, knowing the other 13,000 people who made it to the park that night were real fans.* We would be the diehards who could name the third man out of the bullpen and the bats at the end of the bench. It would be like being in an exclusive social club where we all had one thing in common and came together 162 or so times a year to share it.

(Actually less than that. Any crowd shot during a Marlins game will show a healthy number of Yankees and Red Sox hats. You aren’t a real fan until you take off the cap of the team you’re bandwagoning.)

But August is halfway gone and I still haven’t started listening to any Marlins games. Maybe I’ll just get ready for football and wait for the playoffs to roll around so I can root for ABY.*

(Anyone But the Yankees)