his upbeat, superstar attitude is destroying clubhouse chemistry and our well defined culture of losing. how are we going to reach the magic number of 100 with his bat in the middle of our lineup.

disgraceful.

Butler has to be sent back down to triple a.

the worst.

iam drawing blanks here.

I was worried this thread was about me.

hes more likely to lose 15 games than grienke is to win 15 games.

and your content to keep running him out its absurd. tomko is terrible for a # 6 starter. the man burns bullpens, he cant get ahead of batters. and he wasnt that good in his prime so what makes you think he can be decent at the twilight of his game.

I know this thread isn’t supposed about Tomko, but what’s wrong with having someone like him as a one-year, stopgap 5th starter? Heck, how many previous years would the Royals have been lucky to have them in the middle of the rotation? I’m not saying he’s great, or a future middle-of-the-rotation guy (a la Meche’s optimistic outlook), but he hardly seems like the guy holding the team back.

Are we talking about people that just drive us nuts personally? Or someone who just shouldn’t be on the major league team right now? If its the latter, I’m actually warming to the idea of sending Butler down to AAA for a while to get his swing back in order and to give him full-time reps at 1B (if Hillman can’t reconcile himself to doing that), especially if it puts off the arbitration stuff (I know this has been discussed at length elsewhere, but I’m too lazy to figure it out for myself). Again, this isn’t because I don’t like him or think that he’s “killing the team” or anything, I just think it might be in the long-term interest of both his development and the organization’s finances to do so.

If we’re talking who is killing the team the most right now, probably Gathright. Subjectively, the entertainment value of Gathright is great. And if, as someone brilliantly suggested a while back, the Royals could place cars in left/center field, the home team could have a brilliant advantage. Having said that, despite inexplicable optimism amongst some regarding his offensive potential—his “canthititis” seems to be genetic despite his thrilling breaking of the .700 OPS barrier last season.

Now, subjectively, TPJ drives me nuts the most. He also, historically and objectively, is the worst hitter on the team. He makes Joey Gathright look like a regular David DeJesus with the bat. Having said that, the Royal have options if Gathright is gone, I’m not sure who they’d replace Pena with full-time (I like Callaspo at 2B and as a fill-in for TPJ, but playing him full-time at a defensive position that’s difficult for him might screw with him) that wouldn’t be as bad or worse. So Gathright is more expendable.

There’s also the considerations with Olivo, despite his current lucky streak—the whole, “I thought I was promised a shot at starting” thing really bugs me. Hillman’s strategery also is annoying, but, the truth is, he’s probably not worse than most managers. I’ve seen Joe Torre, John Gibbons, and others make equal and worse decisiona bout bunting, pinch-hitting, reliever use, and stuff. I just don’t think it’s very easy to get beyond “replacement level” with managers (although, as Tony Pena and Buddy Bell show, it is quite easy to get below it.)

which informs the entire discussion as to who’s expendable and who’s not:

This is a team which had been woefully mismanaged on every level for years. There are Bad Habits which need to be broken, including plate discipline issues, TPJ trying to hit home runs, etc. There are also developmental things which need time, such as Alex’s problems with major-league lefties, Billy’s power, and Teahen trying to be… something. (I think Teahen still has power. I just think his plate approach is sapping it; perhaps he’s trying too hard to be a more high-average/OBP guy, I don’t know.)

All of these issues take time under proper management. My issues with Hillman are entirely game-management; I think he’s a good teacher, however, and I suspect he’s trying to work on the issues I’ve mentioned, at least most of them. But habits aren’t broken overnight, or even in two months. And it’s entirely possible our offensive malfeasance is directly related to trying to get hitters to learn a new approach. That’s just a guess; obviously none of us know what’s going on in the clubhouse. Just something to consider.

But I just can’t jump on the, “This is all Hillman’s fault” train that people seem to be starting to embrace. The manager in baseball is really not that important. Players have to produce and many of ours aren’t. The funniest part about it is, we play in the AL, I think I could manage in the AL.

Sarcasm aside, we had a lot of problems with Buddy Bell last year. Some of them were very justified, some maybe not because we were so frustrated with the team. The difference was that Buddy had been with the team for well over a year, and he was an old, recycled manager (at least that’s why I had a problem with him). Any problems with Hillman are a tad bit premature at this point. It’s not even the All-Star break yet folks.