Plus with the without teahen and buck we may loose upto 96 games

Who? Name a good position player that any team, particularly the Royals, could acquire for around 10 mil. Now name a second.

I'm not even going to discuss getting high-quality starting pitching for that amount.

So every good position player in the majors makes 15 million? A fairly reliable starting pitcher will make about 10.

I'm not talking about superstars. Just worthy everyday players.

This makes me sick.

No, but once players hit FA they're grossly overvalued, as you know. That's why I wanted you to specify whom you'd like to see the team sign.

For example, I consider Guillen to be a steady, everyday player, not a superstar, and 10 mil. probably wouldn't have brought him here, even with all of his baggage.

Pitching is even more of a joke. In today's market, I think that 10 might, might get you a #4 or #5 starter, and the Royals seem to have plenty of those.

Ok, so Guillen is performing similarly and making $12 million and not $10 million. Sorry. I don't know why we're quibbling about that.

The point of it all was that Beltran is a nice player but is grossly overpaid and his best years (like 2003) were in Kansas City and seem like they might be behind him.

I really don't care if he's overpaid. I wish like hell the Royals had given him the money to stay because he's more than a nice player. I'm sick of the Emil Browns of the world.

If you believe '03 was Beltran's best. Here's his line, part of it:
2003: .307 26 HR 100 RBI

In NY, he's been solid:
2005: .266 16 HR 78 RBI
2006: .275 41 HR 116 RBI
2007: .276 33 HR 112 RBI

Obviously we all know what he brings defensively. My point is that Beltran can't be the ONLY good player on a team--he's not the world's greatest anything--but he's certainly the quality of player that I'd always like to have on my team. It amazes me how many people care about Glass's bank account. **** him. Spend the money. Get good players.

Well said. Todays game sucks. Nothing pisses me off more than losing a home grown talented player.

If Brett were a Royal today he would have only lasted 4 season in KC.

You're right that this would have been the case for the past 15 years or so.

I'm more hopeful now than I've been in a long time that the Royals organization is going to make a legit. effort to win, and this is because of this year's draft, particularly the selection of Melville in the 4th round.

This kid reportedly wanted huge money, around 1.5 mil. to sign (which is off the charts with respect to the slotting system at this point in the draft) and the team still took him, after selecting Hosmer, who also supposedly wants big-time cash.

This is what "real" teams have done for years. It's cool that KC has decided to play ball, finally. ****ing Glass you worthless sack of monkey shit.

His batting average is down 40 points. Without looking, he's not stealing bases like he did either.

The point of that post before I got carried away is that a lot of reeruns think we could have put 15 mil in front of him and he would have stayed. He was not resigning. They said it over and over. Now it sounds like he looks back and remembers good times here, but that doesn't mean he was going to walk away from 20 million more over 4 or 5 years to stay. It's ridiculous.

I'm glad Kansas City is spending money now for their sake, but the Mets are spending almost $150 million this year. What is another million or two on top of that to outbid them for whoever it is they want? If a team like the Yankees or Mets wants a free agent and KC does too, they will be in New York no matter how willing Glass is to pay up to market.

That's probably going to be largely true. That's why teams like the Royals have to identify talent early and be willing to spend the money when the player is young, a la Soria. Great deal. Same thing should have happened with Beltran. The organization should have never allowed him to get to the final year of his contract.

Sometimes this process causes a team to get burned. Look at the Berroa deal. But I'm more than willing to take this chance, as long as ownership realizes that sometimes a team has to eat a contract or two. Sometimes shit happens. No organization should sit around, throwing up its hands, over a Sweeney signing, for example. People bitched about this for years, like the problem was the player. He got paid. Good for him. The problem wasn't Sweeney. The problem was that he was the only decent talent on an otherwise joke of a team, and, when he broke down, KC was really in a jam.

My final thought on this is that it will be important to worry about how much a player is really worth once the Royals' payroll gets into a competitive range. Don't spend to spend, but identify a target and go get him. This is why I wanted Hunter, and I didn't give a shit if the Royals overpaid by 1 or even 5 mil. Who cares?

The Cardinals should be the model for the Royals. Once we get there, then saying we shouldn't spend X on player X is more logical. Right now, we need all the ****ing talent we can get. Glass's bank account is the least of my concerns.

Exactly. Royals fans should not be pissed that we let Beltran go. We should be pissed because for two decades we failed to develop a minor league system that could replace talent that decided to leave for the Yankees, Red Sox, and other high payroll rosters.

That's where Glass really failed this organization.

You are correct sir. I will never bash Glass for not overpaying for players, but what has happened to our farm system is a travesty. At least it's headed in the right direction now, but it's still going to take years to fix it.

Actually, the team was a full rotten disaster already when Glass took it over. Robinson had been GM since 1991.

The decline started with free spending toward the end of Mr. Kauffman's life on players that didn't work out. The minor league system was in decline though, for sure.

The death knell was the strike in 94 - the team was going to the postseason that year possibly. They lost 90 games in 1992 but were 13 games over .500 in 1994 when the strike happened. Then Herk Robinson decided to fire McRae for this and bring in Bob Boone, who promply returned the team to 90+ loss territory.

If people hate Jack Steadman, well, Herk Robinson is just like him.

Agreed. What happened to the farm system was a travesty.

Why would you not want to retain a very talented player? He should have never seen the final year of his contract. At some point, it can't be a constant rebuild.