By DAVID MARTIN
Hey, Joe, please sign it to your buddy, unrealistic optimism.
In what has become an annual rite of spring training, The Kansas City Star's Joe Posnanski lays out dream-world scenarios the Royals will ride to rediscovered glory. Usually, of course, the team ends up with 100 losses.
This season, Posnanski admitted to thoughts of killing the concept. Popular demand (a Web poll) prompted to Joe to don rose-colored glasses once again. So off the columnist went to solicit quotes the baseball people -- scouts, executives, players -- he trusts mosts.
Sixty-nine games remain on the schedule. Yet, once again, the assessments of Posnanski's informants are holding up about as well Runelvys Hernandez' pants after a turn through the post-game buffet:
"To me, the difference is [new manager] Trey Hillman."
Royals' record after 93 games, 2007: 40-53
Royals' record after 93 gamnes, 2008: 41-52
"Brian Bannister is going to win 15 games."
Bannister's ERA is over 5.00 a season after he went 12-9 and finished third in rookie-of-the-year voting. Baseball people of the non-Posnanski variety saw this coming, as the hitters Bannister faced last year had an usually low batting average on balls they put in play. Sure enough, balls that went for outs in 2007 are falling for hits in 2008. To win 15 games, the crafty right-hander is going to have go all Mensa on the league in the second half.
"Brett Tomko is going to win 15 games."
A scout really told Joe this. On his blog, Posnanski says the scout -- "one of the most respected baseball men in the game" -- told him to write it down: Sucky Brett Tomko was going to win 15.
Tomko won two games before being released on June 22.
"You know, David DeJesus, last year was really his first full season."
Joe's sources get partial credit on this one, as DeJesus is putting together the best season of his career. But it was silly then and it's silly now to think of DeJesus as a player just getting used to his butterfly wings. He's 28, for heaven's sake. It won't be long before fans start asking if he's lost a step.
"It was really Mark Teahen’s first full season."
This statement is dumb on its face and for what it implies. Teahen appeared in 239 games before his first "full" season, giving him plenty of time to acclimate to the fountains and figure out how far a big-league per diem goes. Even worse than suggesting that 2007 was Teahen's rookie season, the quote hints that he has only scratched the surface on his talents. In fact, Teahen has regressed from 2006, when he hit .313 and socked 16 home runs after being recalled from Omaha on June 3.
"I think with David DeJesus, Mark Grudzielanek, Mark Teahen, Alex Gordon, Billy Butler, Jose Guillen and all the others, we’re going to score a lot of runs."
Before this weekend's series with Seattle, the Royals had the worst offense in the American League.
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I remember thinking how funny that column was at the time, but it was entertaining. And that's the deal with Joe. He is entertaining and occasionally insightful. Sort of like Chris Hitchens. Is he going prove God doesn't exist. Well no, but he made me laugh out loud several times trying.
Of course, you should cut him just a little slack on this. Spring Training is a time when scouts seem to really get "caught up in it." For example, I read in more than one place this spring that Dan Uggla "might be done." His bat was slow, he might not be able to catch up to fastballs, etc. Um, that didn't happen.
I just don't get JoPo.
He's been here for over ten years but hasen't wrote anything of any substance in that time frame. He writes soft, suger filled columns about love, unicorns, Care Bears and clouds.
In JoPo's world, every coach in the Kansas City area is the next coming of Paul Brown, Casey Stengal and Dean Smith.
Every player the Royals draft is one step from being A-Rod.
With every draft the Chiefs are one step away from being the next great NFL dynasty.
It took him until last season to admit that David Glass isn't the brave knight who saved baseball in Kansas City that he and many in the K.C. media made him out to be. It also took last year for him to admit that Carl Peterson isn't the great GM he use to write columns about.
JoPo is a hack. He may get a lot of respect from fellow writers and get a lot of awards. But, with hardcore readers and sports fans (Fans like kcforum.net, kctalk.com, kcflightcrew, ect.) He doesn't get a lot of respect and getts little to no praise that he gets from fellow writers.
I think Greg Hall said it best about JoPo when he wrote:
"JoPo has a wealth of fans who love his sappy prose but I am not one of his clones. His style is reminiscent of the grade school teacher you had who gave everyone A�s no matter how many wrong answers the dumb kid sitting next to you wrote down. JoPo writes like even the dumb kids in sports are honor-roll worthy. In his world there are no bad guys, at least none who he might run into in a locker room or at a party. JoPo also has a knack for incredibly exaggerating almost everything. His columns are full of conversations on the mound or in the huddle that he had no access to. In his Tuesday column he wrote how K-State�s Kendra Wecker �set the world on fire� when as a 12-year-old she competed against boys and qualified for the finals in the national Punt, Pass and Kick competition. Somehow the flames of that worldwide inferno never reached my doorstep. JoPo�s columns run on forever and I rarely bother to take the entire trip."
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