Ok, some ground rules

I’m not sure on the pure mathematics of the situation, but let us say, for arguments sake, that the Royals are eliminated from playoff contention (make sure your “years without a playoff –birth-O meter” has the capacity to read “24”, and if the price is right you might want to upgrade to the three digit model now before they get to pricy).

With that out of the way, we shall develop a small working list of ground rules that the front office might want to use as some light reading material in order to avoid some of the pitfalls famous in these glorious past 23 years of blowout success.

1) The propensity to fall in love with small in stature, soft-tossing left-handers, particularly of the aging variety must cease. Darrel May, Chris George, Brian Anderson, Jimmy Gobble, Bruce Chen (see the pattern). If you must stop gap measure at least make sure that if Mars, Saturn and the planetary motions line up, that the pitcher should fool at least one major league hitter.

2) If the man’s first name is “Bruce” and his last name is “Chen”, never, never, never, sign him. Call-up either the Section 4 peanut vendor in Wilmington or Mr. Chen’s youngest son or daughter, all of whom warrant sucking up a 25 man roster space way more than the Brucemeister.

3) Any signee over the age of 30, who is promised more than $1.5 million per annum must post a performance bond of at least 80% of the total contractual amount. Of course no player will agree to such terms. This might deter our fearless front office from paying old people way too much money to put up numbers the average AA ballplayer produces between trips to Golden Corral on his $15 a day per diem.

4) A player over the age of 30 must out hit a younger prospect by at least 20% in all offensive categories.

An example: Willie “the sparkplug” Bloomquist should not receive his own Macy’s Day Parade and key to the city for hitting .257 with 3 hr and 21 RBI. (Willie now has nine, (9), neuf, neuve, CAREER home runs).
Thus a comparable, strapping, young lad down in AA who would actually make someone on the street not guess “junior, junior, vice vice vice president at Sprint” as his occupation, would have to be able put up the following numbers: 0.214, 2.5 hrs, 17.5 RBI….ect…On second thought, just have open tryouts on the concourse level of the renovated K two hours before each game. Or…there is always Craigslist.

Again this is a working list and shall be updated every time Bruce Chen gets a start.