Nothing will change with the Royals until Owner David Glass stops skimping on his baseball operations, even though he receives tens of millions in welfare payments from Major League Baseball.
Oh, Glass will argue that he raised the payroll from $36.9 million last season to $47 million this season, but that money would have been better spent on player development.
Overpaying for second-tier free agents is a losing strategy, but G.M. Allard Baird had little choice. Glass ordered the payroll increase, and Rafael Furcal and A.J. Burnett weren't about to go to Kansas City.
Injuries contributed significantly to the Royals' poor start; the team opened the season without three-fifths of its starting rotation - Zack Greinke, Mark Redman and Runelvys Hernandez - then lost another starter, Denny Bautista. First baseman Mike Sweeney, center fielder David DeJesus and outfielder Shane Costa also landed on the disabled list.
But even if everything broke right for the Royals, what was their upside - 75 wins?
Such is the grim reality for perhaps the worst franchise in American sports. The Royals are headed for their fourth 100-loss season in the past five years, a disgraceful run of ineptitude at a time when other financially challenged clubs - including several in the Royals' division, the A.L. Central - find ways to contend.
Glass' conduct should be Exhibit A when the owners revisit revenue sharing during the upcoming labor negotiations, and wealthy teams such as the Yankees howl that their subsidies to low-revenue clubs are going to waste.
The Royals received $64.5 million from MLB last season, according to The New York Times - $30 million in revenue sharing, plus the $34.5 million payment that each team received from national TV, cable, radio, Internet and the sale of merchandise.
Yet Glass - who made his fortune in rising to the top executive at Wal-Mart - pays below or well below the industry norm to his baseball executives, evaluators and instructors, according to former Royals employees. He also has cut corners on draft-pick bonuses even though developing home-grown talent is the only way for low-revenue teams to compete.
Baird was a typical Glass hire, a former scout and instructor who rose through the organization to become G.M. on June 17, 2000. He made some impressive low-profile acquisitions, but his financially driven trades of outfielders Johnny Damon, Jermaine Dye and Carlos Beltran failed to yield a single impact player.
This is not a franchise devoid of young talent. Third baseman Alex Gordon and outfielder Billy Butler are potential stars, but Glass needs to grasp reality: It might be years before the Royals are truly competitive again. They blew their chance to trade Sweeney. Their other veterans have little value.
This isn't Mission Impossible; the Royals only make it seem that way. Glass is receiving plenty of money from his fellow owners. It's time he put that money to its intended use and reinvested it in his franchise.
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