Meet the 2005 Royals

Well, since the season is a bust it's time to look at 2005. Here's what I think the Royals should do now to prepare:

Bench Desi Relaford. He's a great utility player and can hit lefties off the bench but will likely never be a regular. Stop wasting his at bats and give them to Jose Bautista at third to what he can do

Bench Matt Stairs. I like Matt but again, he's on a 1-year deal and so he's gone after this season. Instead give all of those at bats to Dee Brown and Byron Gettis

Move Ken Harvey to left field. It would be interesting to see if Harvey can play some outfield if it looks like the Royals won't be able to move Sweeney. This would give the Royals some flexibility in the offseason as well

Bring up Calvin Pickering. He's earned some PT and should be put at first base with Sweeney DH'ing

So you're lineup would look as follows:

Dejesus CF
Graffanino 2B
Sweeney DH
Pickering 1B
Harvey LF
Brown RF
Berroa SS
Bautista 3B
Buck C

And then Gettis would be your 4th outfielder. While this lineup won't score that many runs and its not any better defensively it can't really be worse than what we've seen since the Beltran deal.

On another subject I scored last night's 3-2 loss to the Orioles. I was quite impressed with Zack Grienke as it was the first time I'd seen him live. He really changed speeds well, located his fastball, and in one at bat threw a 93mph fastball and a 63mph curveball. He's the real deal. Not sure if he simply got tired but his location was bad in the 7th when Palmeiro took him deep and then he gave up back to back doubles.