Doesn't Ring a Bell

The Kansas City Royals hired another new manager this year. David Gus "Buddy" Bell became the Royals' fourteenth manager in their young history. Forgive the Fan if Bell's management history (with his 345-462 career managing record) doesn't give much optimism for the Royals.

Perhaps this is an emotional reaction. The Fan had a drunk of a stepfather nicknamed, "Buddy." That must be it. Or maybe it's just the name, "Buddy," that is the problem. The name invokes a good old boy. Could you report to a boss named, "Buddy"?

It's never easy to understand the relationship between the manager and the team's bottom line performance. Is Joe Torre a great manager, or has he just benefited from having the best players money can buy? Did Casey Stengel suddenly get great when he joined the Yankees and then get really terrible when he finished with the Mets?

So one has to give Mr. Bell the benefit of the doubt. So what does he have to work with? He has a few good players, a few question marks and a whole lot of young people.

Of course there is Mike Sweeney, one of the good guys of the game. Sweeney wants to stay with the Royals in the worst way, and he deserves that distinction. He's been a great player for a long time and being 33, it would be easy to understand wanting to finish where he started. But there is one question to ask here.

Does Sweeney stay because it is comfortable and if so, does that make him a winner? It reminds the Fan of a worker who stays in a decent job and turns down promotions because it feels safer to stay where he is. If Sweeney has endured ten years of losing, does that make losing okay? And now he has a manager that is used to losing. Hmm...

Emil Brown was one of the best surprises of 2005. But few are aware of it. Here is a guy drafted by the Athletics eleven years ago. In five years, Brown batted 404 times in the major leagues with 81 hits for an even .200 batting average. From 2001 through 2004, Brown didn't get any major league at bats. Then he got a job for the Royals.

Brown played 150 games for the Royals and batted .286 with 17 homers, 86 RBI, ten stolen bases in eleven attempts and finished with an on-base percentage of .349. What a great story! Here's for rooting for a repeat performance! Go Emil!

The Royals actually signed a few free agents over the winter that people heard of! Reggie Sanders, most recently of the Cardinals, will provide great fielding and occasional pop with his bat. Sanders is now 37 and is seven homers shy of 300 for his career. Kansas City is a hard place to hit homers though and Sanders could have warning track power there.

Sanders can also run the bases and even at the age of 36, stole 14 bases in 15 attempts. He is just three shy of 300 in that area as well and will easily join the 300/300 club.

The Royals also acquired Mark Grudzielanek and Doug Mientkiewicz to play second and first respectively and respectfully. Mientkiewicz is a wonderful first baseman of questionable hitting prowess. But great fielding first basemen are vastly underrated in helping a team win ball games. The Fan just feels sorry for the equipment guy who has to sew those names on the uniforms.

John Buck, behind the plate, is a decent player who could improve greatly by being more patient when batting. He only walked 23 times in 400 at bats last year. Between Ivan Rodriguez and Buck, the two A.L. Central catchers had less than 40 walks between them!

David DeJesus is another young player that had a good year last year. The home-grown Royal batted .293 with a .359 on-base percentage.

The pitching is where the Royals get dicey. The combined record of newcomers Joe Mays (formerly of Minnesota) and Mark Redman (of just about every other team in the majors), along with K.C. hurler, Runelvys Hernandez was 19-39. Ouch.

Scott Elarton was a nice pickup. He had an 11-9 record with the Indians last year and could flourish further in pitcher friendly Kansas City. But the Royals didn't help themselves at all in the bullpen with just Mike MacDougal the only bright spot out there.

The Fan hopes that Zack Greinke can sort out things and return to his career. He has a job that most of us can only dream about. It would be great if he could learn to enjoy it.

After reading back this post for edit, is it the Fan, or do the Royals have the strangest player names in baseball? And they lead the league in players with names ending in the letter "O" (Paul Bako, Andres Blanko and Andrew Sisco).

Names not-withstanding, Buddy Bell will have to hope the pitching staff gives him something to work with or his career .428 winning percentage will dive further south.