Mellinger credits SOC (indirectly) for the Royals payroll increase

[FloridaMan88]

Another victory for the Save our Chiefs movement....


A Royals makeover ordered by you

http://www.kansascity.com/2013/04/07...ed-by-you.html

By Sam Mellinger

The Kansas City Star

You did this. If you are a Royals fan, you had a hand in the team that’s playing in Kansas City for the first time this afternoon. This is your team in a meaningful, intimate way that goes well beyond tickets and T-shirts and summer evenings on the couch.

Kansas City’s sports passion — specifically, joy for last year’s baseball All-Star Game and disgust over the horrible Chiefs — created this year’s Royals team.

Nobody with the Royals will say this out loud, but it’s the truth all the same: Ownership had no plans to extend the payroll to a franchise-record $80.5 million this year until you made yourself heard.

Royals owner David Glass is often — erroneously and unfairly — accused of being absentee and out of touch. But he heard you. Saw you. Felt you. And he changed because of it.

Now, this isn’t to suggest anyone should present a trophy or ribbon to Glass. One of the biggest payroll jumps in baseball (up about $16 million, or more than 25 percent from a year ago) means the Royals rank 19th in spending — slightly ahead of the Twins and Indians in the division but well behind the big-market White Sox and Tigers.

But the point here is that Glass continues to do what he thinks is best for the Royals, and that opinion has been shaped by you.

This started a year ago, with the All-Star Game. Ticket sales spiked. More people paid to watch the Royals last year than any season since 1993, save the first year of renovated Kauffman Stadium and the fluke of 2003, when the team was in a pennant race. That was the first sign of Kansas City’s long-suppressed baseball passion reemerging.

When All-Star weekend finally arrived, Royals fans might as well have grabbed the sport by the neck and screamed: THIS IS WHAT WE’RE CAPABLE OF IF GIVEN A WORTHY PRODUCT!!!

You packed the stadium for the Futures Game, and that just doesn’t happen. You took over the Home Run Derby with a fierce loyalty, booing a Yankee who said he’d choose a Royal to play alongside him ... and then didn’t. You showered your only All-Star with so much adulation that Billy Butler said it made him “want to run through a brick wall for this city.”

That drew the attention of the Royals’ front office. You could say their ears perked up a bit. And you could say their eyes opened in the fall, when they saw and heard and felt the anger that Kansas City directed at the Chiefs.

Kansas City has this national perception as sort of the capital of Midwestern kindness. And in most cases, we are a kind people. Need directions? Help with the door? Restaurant recommendations? Sure, absolutely, happy to assist.

But reward our sports passion with incompetence? Follow up promise with failure? Then this city will boo without mercy, flood every line of communication with raw criticism — heck, there might even be a plane flying banners over the stadium calling for jobs.

Again, nobody within the Royals organization will say any of this out loud. But they observed the anger across the Truman Sports Complex parking lot last fall with a bit of shock and a touch of fear.
With a few exceptions, the Royals have avoided the kind of unapologetic vitriol that defined the Chiefs last season mostly because expectations have just never been that high. That’s changed in the last year or so thanks to the maturation of The Greatest Farm System Ever.

Dayton Moore and his Process will celebrate their seventh anniversary this year. Baseball lifers will tell you that’s the absolute minimum amount of time needed to rehab a rotten organization, but long-time Royals fans will tell you that’s about all the delayed gratitude they can muster.

When Glass said he set a $70 million soft cap for 2013, the reaction was strong and quick. The Kansas City sports fan would not accept this, and the events of the last year made it clear that the rules of engagement were changing, too.

The 2013 Royals did not want to be treated like the 2012 Chiefs. Last year’s All-Star Game showed Royals leadership what Kansas City could look like given a little meaningful baseball.

Glass green-lighted a payroll some $8 million above his previously set limit. That’s how they were able to completely remake their starting rotation. That’s how they were able to field, on paper, their best team since the strike.

You forced this change.

And this afternoon, for the first time, you will see the product of your passion in person.

[Titty Meat]

This is all bullshit the Royals will miss the playoffs for the 28th year in a row the Chiefs traded for a below average QB.

[MeatRock]

Originally Posted by Bo's Pelini

This is all bullshit the Royals will miss the playoffs for the 28th year in a row the Chiefs traded for a below average QB.

Your speculation is bullshit.

[threebag]

Originally Posted by MeatRock

Your speculation is bullshit.

Anything that spews out of that dick hole is bullshit

[Cephalic Trauma]

Originally Posted by Bo's Pelini

This is all bullshit the Royals will miss the playoffs for the 28th year in a row the Chiefs traded for a below average QB.

Hey, **** you, you redheaded inbred. We're good this year.

[BigMeatballDave]

Originally Posted by Bo's Pelini

This is all bullshit the Royals will miss the playoffs for the 28th year in a row the Chiefs traded for a below average QB.

Hey. Your tampon is saturated. You should probably change it.

[gblowfish]

Originally Posted by Bo's Pelini

This is all bullshit the Royals will miss the playoffs for the 28th year in a row the Chiefs traded for a below average QB.

Neither team has proven a damn thing yet. But at least the Royals are trying to be relevant. Jury still out on Chiefs, depends on Alex Smiff and who they draft.

[BryanBusby]

That's kind of a stretch. I don't think people care enough about the Royals enough to start flying banners over the K. It also helps that Dayton Moore is just bad his job and not a villain like Pioli was.

[KurtCobain]

Originally Posted by BryanBusby

That's kind of a stretch. I don't think people care enough about the Royals enough to start flying banners over the K. It also helps that Dayton Moore is just bad his job and not a villain like ***** was.

I could see royals fans flying a banner.

[BryanBusby]

Originally Posted by something cooler

I could see royals fans flying a banner.

I couldn't. Royals fans typically believe that David Glass couldn't give a **** about the product on the field as long as he's making money (hard to imagine why....).

They've also been pathetic for so long that they've missed out on generations of fans. The same generations that would put energy into grass-root things like SoC.

[MeatRock]

Originally Posted by BryanBusby

I couldn't. Royals fans typically believe that David Glass couldn't give a **** about the product on the field as long as he's making money (hard to imagine why....).

They've also been pathetic for so long that they've missed out on generations of fans. The same generations that would put energy into grass-root things like SoC.

Agreed. I also think GMDM had a hand in increasing the payroll due to the farm system finally showing signs of future superstars. In addition, they knew that they may not be able to afford these players in the future. Starting pitching was needed ASAP.

[KChiefs1]

Originally Posted by BryanBusby

That's kind of a stretch. I don't think people care enough about the Royals enough to start flying banners over the K. It also helps that Dayton Moore is just bad his job and not a villain like ***** was.

Kinda agree with this...Dayton Moore is a good guy which is in contrast to Pioli.

[Hammock Parties]

[MeatRock]

For the record, yes i hate the fact we had to trade Myers to get starting pitching.

[Lex Luthor]

Originally Posted by MeatRock

For the record, yes i hate the fact we had to trade Myers to get starting pitching.

You mean Wil Myers, the minor-leaguer who has never even had a single at-bat in the major leagues? Wil Myers, the guy who the Rays don't plan to call up until June? Wil Myers, the guy who had one great minor league season out of four? Wil Myers, the guy who hit .254 with 8 home runs in AA in 2011? That Wil Myers?

I swear, Wil Myers is the most over-rated prospect since Clint Hurdle. Everybody thinks he is going to be the next Mike Trout. He's not. If he were half as good as everybody thinks he is, he wouldn't be starting 2013 in the minor leagues.

For the record, I would have preferred the Royals keep him. But trading him and Odo for Shields and Davis is a trade I'd make every day of the week, Rany's objections notwithstanding.