Interesting post by our boy Mellinger, discussing the conflicts Trey faces every day. Basically, Trey has to evaluate who can/should play for the Royals next season while simultaneously trying to Win Now! and avoid 100 losses.

Mellinger notes how Buddy Bell played Gload over Butler in his quixotic effort to win now:

"there is the strand of DNA that's inside every big league manager, every competitive person, to want to win games, win today, win tomorrow, no matter what. This is what we may call "the Buddy Bell playing Ross Gload at first base instead of Billy Butler" gene."

Mellinger notes how Treyball similarly plays Olivo over BPJ in an attempt to win now. Most of us see Jacobs over Kila as part of the Win Now! strategy.

Commenter curtisrider nails it: "I don't think that playing Gload over Butler came from some sort of competitive gene. I think it came from simply not understanding how to win baseball games."

If there's one thing the Royals have believed in over the past 10 years, it's the truism that a proven bad player is always preferable to an unproven player of any ability.