Do you ever feel like walking away?
Dear Will in 2000,
This is basically as good as its gonna get. All these pitchers the team has? Literally none of them are going to work out. Most will be out of baseball by 2005, so you have that to look forward to. OK, Suppan is going to be the most boring pitcher in baseball, but not really do anything for the Royals. He will help a utterly mediocre St. Louis team win a World Series, against the Tigers. Yea, the Tigers will play in a World Series. Damon and Dye will play for a long time, just by the end people won't even remember them as Royals. Only Sweeney will stay around, yet by the end he'll be a much hated player. Oh, and Tony Muser. He's the new gold standard.
Dear Will in 2003,
Enjoy this. This is your three months of fun for the decade. Do not use this season and a growing hobby of reading blogs as an impetus to write about the Royals. Allard Baird isn't going to turn it around. It's actually going to get worse from here. Then worse. Then ever more worse. Then it's going to turn into theater of the absurd. Forget about the Royals being "right there". How do I say this? Every... other... team... in... the... division will get better. They will all make the playoffs at least once by 2008. All save one.
Dear Will in 2005,
So you didn't follow my advice, huh? Guess what, wiseguy. You're going to miss Emil Brown one day. You know how its kinda cute that the Royals have Matt Stairs around? In 2010, he'd probably still be their best option as part of a DH platoon, which is my way of saying Huber has no future in KC. Oh, and the Royals are going to hire a GM who is going to be 100% old-school, anti-stats, the whole deal. From the Braves. But also, bad old-school, so not even good. I guess what I'm trying to say is this sorta interesting Juan Pierre type in Chicago now? Yea, in five years, he'll be a Royal. The number of teams that "get it" with regards to basic sabermetric truths is going to continue to grow, until really, it isn't even going to be a story anymore. Except your Royals. They are going to be the one team that further digs their head in the sand. The Cuba of baseball.
Dear Will in 2007,
Let me put it to you another way: Willie Bloomquist is going to be a part of your life. For multiple seasons. And they aren't going to win in 2008 either. And they aren't going to win in 2009. And they're going to head into 2010 projected to be a ~75 win team. And one more thing, the supposedly good prospects in the system will be hitting AA for 2010. Well, some of them will be. Berroa is going to be replaced by someone more infuriating, and then he's going to be replaced by someone who is actually even more infuriating in like a whole new way.
Dear Will in 2008,
Are you listening? I'm giving you advice from the future?!?! You don't seem to care. So look, Dayton's going to basically stop making trades... err good trades in 2008 and 2009. And don't get excited about Mike Aviles. Everything is going to stall. (Well, there will be one cool thing, but I'll save it so you're surprised.) The industry keeps getting smarter, as you can see by now. Horrendous FA contracts that actually hurt large market teams? Phasing out. Terrible washed-up-vets-for-good-prospects-at-the-deadline trades? Essentially non-existent. Teams ignoring the draft and amateur talent in Latin America? Well, I guess there's still Houston. The Royals competitive advantage in the future? Umm, next question. One last thing... I know this sounds somewhat insane, but Rany is going to become incredibly controversial. I know, it is going to be bizarre. He's actually going to be kinda sorta banned from the K. So are some other people. I'm not sure why you're doing this anymore. As I told you last year: bad in '08, bad in '09, bad in '10. If you get out now, you've really only lost four or five years of leisure time. You've got some of your twenties left... I'm only going to say this once...