Day Four of the Ross Gload Era greets us with all the promise of spring. Here's a link summary of the Sisco-Gload fallout:
-KC Star Story in which initial spin from Dayton is revealed
-KC Royals.com Story in which Gload's character is lauded
-Rob & Rany's take on Sisco/Gload
-Rany's Post on BP Unfiltered which proclaims, "Come Back Allard!"
-BBTF's Transaction Oracle on the trade
-FireBell's Rant against the trade
In the last few days numerous posters here at RR have weighed in, with responses ranging from confused to irate to cool-with-it. Personally, I've slid back and forth across the spectrum numerous times. Looking at this Cartesian style, lets isolate what we can absolutely be certain of:
1) Sisco is a relief pitcher. A mid-leverage relief pitcher at the moment.
2) Ross Gload is a bench/backup/stopgap player.
After that, its all about muddier concepts: potential, probabilities, risk/reward, positional scarcity, etc. Plainly, Sisco grades out higher on that scale, and in fact goes against a widely believed GMDM trend (going back to Scouts Honor [shudder]) that Dayton's all about the gathering of pitchers, especially those that throw hard.
In a way, this is almost like a family or couple fight: the stakes are actually pretty low, but somehow a larger issue of competence and a perceived lack of foresight is also at play. No, its not a big deal that I wasn't lavished with attention on Valentine's Day, but it is a big deal that you didn't WANT to or think that I wouldn't care.
Good times.
So as I walked across an empty Iowa City this morning I mostly told myself that the exchange of a mostly bad 1-inning pitcher for a backup position player doesn't matter much, and even if Sisco catches fire in Chicago (which I 100% expect) it still won't matter much.
However...
We have now seen Burgos & Sisco turned into Bannister and Gload, an exchange that an 88-win team should be happy with, but not a 68-win team.
Still, I am making an effort to see the more positive position of posters like "CentralChamps2009" and "Howserfan".
And moreover, this way we can all look forward to JoePo's next "this team will be competent" column after Gload ropes a game-winning single on Opening Day.
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-Later tonight I hope to post the latest Radio Affiliate Profile, and I welcome any suggestions. Ditto for the off-season Poem of the Week.