In lieu of something positive to write about the Royals, perhaps something negative about another team might be distracting. I suppose that isn't the most noble way of thinking, but what are you going to do on a Satuday in the middle of a losing streak?

This morning, reading a draft preview that mentioned Adrian Gonzalez from the 2000 draft, it simply struck me that, off the top of my head, there was a time when the Rangers had Gonzalez, Travis Hafner, and Mark Teixeira in their system. This season, they've been throwing a Gload-esque [(tm) NYRoyal] pu-pu platter of Ben Broussard (now departed)/Chris Shelton out there in the hope that one of them might recall a bit of past potential (at least the Rangers didn't give them a two-year contract, I guess) until their next stud (or so I hear) Chris Davis is ready for the majors.

I can see trading away some of the "excess" talent earlier if you thought they could fill another need. But did any Rangers fan imagine that all three would be gone, starring elsewhere? [OK, in Hafner's case, not so much now, but for a couple years he looked like the white David Ortiz..] I wonder if Rangers fan ever think about how, in 2006, they could have had Teixeira in RF, Hafner at DH, and Gonzalez and 1B.

At least they got good stuff in return, right? Obviously for Teixeira, there's some potential (Saltalamacchia and Andrus, anyone else?). For Hafner -- Ryan Drese and the corpse of Einer Diaz. For Gonzalez -- Adam  Eaton and Akinori Otsuka. At least in the last case they didn't have to throw in a young pitcher. Oh, yeah.

I imagine a lot Royals fans are thinking, "Geez, at least they got to have Teixeria on the big team for a few years. We'd kill to have to make choices llike that." Yeah, that was nice, but they couldn't manage to keep any of those guys? They lost all three? That's gotta hurt.

I guess the level of pain depends on who you are. What do you think, RRers? Any Ranger fans out there who want to enlighten us? Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?