The 25 Man Roster as Kitchen Tools

 Putting together a major league roster is like putting together a kitchen.  You need some of this, some of that.  There are things you need and things you want.  You’ve got a budget, and it’s easy to spend too much on disappointing performers.  How would the Royals current 25 man roster look at the Bed, Bath and Beyond of roster construction? 

 Brian Bannister

Measuring cups – it’s all about the numbers, the tinkering, getting the right mix – but if you measure wrong, you won’t like the results.

Bruce Chen

Apple peeler/corer/slicer – why do you even have this?

Kyle Davies

Toaster oven – you were with your parents when they bought one and it sure looked great.  They didn’t have much luck with it so they gave up on it and let you have it.  You haven’t had much luck with it either, but every now and then, you get a pretty great frozen pizza out of it, and you just can’t let it go, even if it catches fire about every fifth use.

Kyle Farnsworth

Crème brulee blowtorch – in very limited applications, can be a useful tool, but at the end of the day, it’s still a freaking blowtorch.

Zack Greinke

High end food processor – it slices, it dices.  You want power?  It can pulverize food.  Want finesse?  It can slice and grate with care.  Loved by high brow foodies and traditional home cooks alike, this is the best appliance in your kitchen.

Luke Hochevar

Waffle iron – maddeningly inconsistent, hard to live up to expectations.  Some times you get delicious Belgians, other times you just get smokey batter stuck to the iron – it’s boom or bust for breakfast!

Dusty Hughes

Left-handed kitchen shears – well, they’re left handed, so there’s that.

Gil Meche
Broken Microwave – the once mighty stalwart of the kitchen that’s really seen better days, just hasn’t been the same since it was used for 132 straight minutes to cook a complete dinner.

 Josh Rupe

Potato Ricer – um, what?

Joakim Soria

Pressure cooker – works best in high pressure situations, will go long periods of time without use, and is occasionally used to just boil water to get it some work.

Robinson Tejeda

Deep Fryer – powerful tool, can be a bit messy, disaster when not working properly.

Brad Thompson  

Ceramic Spoon rest – pretty much set up for failure, nasty stuff dumped on them, once they’re broken just throw them away like the last one.

Jason Kendall

Knife sharpener – relies on grit, not as useful as the newer models.

Brayan Pena

Fondue Pot – when was the last time you saw one of these in use?

Mike Aviles

Garlic press – what a great tool!  Once you got it, you couldn’t figure out how you ever cooked without it.  It broke and your cuisine suffered mightily.  But hey, you got a new one and things are looking up again!

Yuniesky Betancourt

A sieve – everything gets through.

Willie Bloomquist

Spork – needs no explanation – ‘does’ everything, does nothing well

Billy Butler

Charcoal grill – lots of fun, pretty reliable, not as much power as some of the more expensive grills, but a solid performer.

Alberto Callaspo

Butcher knife - very good at what it does, but please, don’t try to peel potatoes with it (or play it at second base).

Chris Getz

Potato peeler – basically the opposite of the butcher knife – seems okay at what it does, but don’t try to chop meat with it – on balance probably less useful overall than the butcher knife.

Kila Ka'aihue

Free Rice Cooker – well, you got this as a gift, you didn’t even acquire it.  You’re still waiting to try it out.  I know, I know, everything says it’s better than what you have now but one of your friends saw one once and said it only had white rice heat, you don’t know if it could handle brown rice BUT YOU’LL NEVER KNOW UNLESS YOU GIVE IT A CHANCE.  RICE COOKER NOW!

David DeJesus

Chef’s knife – good at everything, terrific at nothing.  Solid performer day in and day out.  You really rely on it, even if it never gets the notoriety of other pieces.

Jose Guillen

Overpriced Juicer – seemed like a good idea at the time, you had that one smoothie that one time that was sort of good, so why not?  Your juice seemed good, but a closer look showed that it was actually sort of toxic, then one of the gears was broken and it just totally stopped working. 

Mitch Maier

Plastic Cutting Board – cheaper than the older, wooden models and provides comparable performance – less likely to rot.

Scott Podsednik

Mushroom slicer - It only does one thing, and you’d be pretty surprised how poorly it actually does it.