Needs: 1. two or more high-quality starting pitchers; 2. 1B; 3. SS

What They Should Do: Strong Sell. I don't think there's quite enough long-term talent here to make the Royals a legitimate contender in 2009 through 2011. Alex Gordon and Luke Hochevar had disappointing seasons, and a team centered around those two plus Mark Teahen, Billy Butler, Brian Bannister, David DeJesus, Gil Meche, and Joakim Soria is probably going to peak at about 78 wins. So what do you do? You flip Meche, whose contract will now look like an asset to at least 15 or 20 teams, to the losers in the Johan Santana derby (although Meche does have a no-trade clause, unfortunately). You trade Bannister, who isn't all that young and whose low ERA was a DIPS-induced fluke. And you see what you can get for Grudzielanek in a middle infield market that should be fairly fluid this winter.

What They Will Do: Hold. Teams that exceed expectations like the Royals just did tend to be holders, whereas teams that fail to meet expectations are usually either buyers or sellers. I suspect that Dayton Moore fails to see the opportunity he has on his hands with Meche and Bannister.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/baseball/mlb/10/29/bp.alcentral/1.html

While I don't agree with his "What the should do" entry, it's a point of view I haven't seen before. That said, the part that I hate about this sort of thing is this: who are we supposed to get that will improve the team if we trade Meche and Bannister? If the answer is a bunch of prospects, when does he plan on having the Royals actually get better. Shouldn't we try to move other pieces (Teahan, DeJesus, anyone else) and get some more starting pitching rather then trade away the best two pitchers we've had in some time? It's awfully easy to say we should trade these guys to improve, but who are we going to get in return is a little more difficult, and something that many journalists don't seem to want to get into.

I also don't know why he says the team exceeded expectations. The pitched better, batted worse, and overall ended with 90 losses. Is that really exceeding expectations? Most people I talked to believed that they would finish anywhere from 90-99 losses. Done. Expectations: Met.