Our bullpen from last year had lost two of its three most dominant pitchers (Riske and Dotel), and in order to continue having a strong pitching staff, replacing them had to be a priority. There is also no way Bale and Gobble could do what Mahay has done—Mahay is a substantially better pitcher than either Bale or Gobble, and they also all have completely different roles. Just because a pitcher is left-handed doesn’t mean that the only role they are good for is being a LOOGY. That is like saying the Mets shouldn’t have any other left-handed arms in the ‘pen because they have Billy Wagner. C’mon.

Let’s also look at where the Royals bullpen was when we made the Mahay signing—we hadn’t traded for Ramirez, and while Yabuta was seen as very talented, he didn’t have any MLB experience. With Soria taking Dotel’s closer job, the only pitcher we could really tab for setup work was Leo Nunez. I’m a big fan of Nunez, but we needed more than him to replace the three-headed monster of Dotel, Riske, and Soria that we had last season.

Furthermore, that implies that we could’ve addressed our other needs through the FA market last year when that was patently not the case. The market for FA shortstops was abysmal, and it wasn’t as though GMDM didn’t go after power bats—he did, but some of the signings (like Hunter to the Angels) took everyone by surprise.

Signing Mahay made a lot of sense, and it was a good signing on GMDM’s part. Mahay has, with a couple rare exceptions, been excellent in relief for us this year.

For the same reasons as Retro.

but what is more troubling is not that they are on pace to win 67 – it’s the sheer lack of development from ANY of the position players, save Gordon. That has to be troubling, and if it is true, then the franchise is nowhere near as ready to breakthrough as we all thought. 2009? 2010? Well, if Buter and Teahen don’t develop, then we are going to miss our window of opportunity afforded us by the pitching development, and this crazy cycle of trying to get both sides of the game to peak at roughly the same time will start all over again. I’m 48, and now I’m starting to wonder for the first time if they will ever make the playoffs in my lifetime again. That’s sad.

I’m not advocating “blowing the whole thing up” – just make some moves from our few areas of excess (catcher, 2B, pitching) to better utilize our assets.

While I’m at it – a good faith gesture from Glass would be to demand that we sign Bonds – even if it makes no sense for the long term and even though we are no longer contending this season. (we were contending 8 games ago – 2 and a half games out is contending). At least it would send some sort of message to the fans and to the team that winning now is important too. Remember Moore talking in ST about players need to earn their spot now, this is no longer a place for “free rides”, etc. etc. Where’s the moves to back that bravado up?????

I’m not that down on him – just filling out the poll with a 4th option.

On the other hand, why are we all so quick to credit McClure with helping develop the pitching, but loathe to criticize Barnett for the lack of development with the hitters? More importantly, isn’t GMDM asking the same question? Don’t you think Hillman must be having doubts about Barnett as well?

Yes, he doesn’t have a whole lot to work with – but compared to last season, it’s basically the same team, except with the addition of Guillen, and with the exception of a core of young rookies who should seemingly improve. That’s just not happening – the team has regressed to last in the league in runs; they were 13th last year. The difference is LARGER than that – we are last by NEARLY HALF A RUN A GAME!