This is how jaded we baseball fans have become in Kansas City: I immediately thought, Hey, that’s a good trade. That was my very first reaction. Late Thursday evening the Royals traded Carlos Beltran, the most exciting player the team has had in a decade, for three guys who, until now, I had never heard of.
And my first reaction was: Yeah, good trade.
This is how sad and illogical this game of baseball has become.
In the grand scheme of things, this of course was an awful, awful trade for Kansas City. The Royals just dealt to Houston a charismatic, likable 27-year-old superstar who this year is on pace to hit 36 home runs, bang 45 doubles, steal 33 bases, drive in 120 runs, score 120 runs and get to more fly balls than any center fielder in baseball.
But we’re not kidding anybody here. There is no grand scheme of things in baseball, at least not in Kansas City. This is one of the smallest towns in baseball. The Royals make slightly more on television and radio than the kid who mows lawns in our neighborhood, and the team owner, David Glass, is a financially conservative man who ran Wal-Mart. We know what we’ve got here. We’ve got a long shot, a low-priced horse that just might come in someday if all the stars line up just right.
It has been clear for more than two years to anyone paying attention that the Royals would not and could not afford Beltran. His agent, Scott Boras, is dreaming of $18 million a year.
The Royals were ready to trade Beltran last year but then, improbably, the team won some games, stayed in the race until the last few weeks, and the Royals had no real choice but to hold on to Beltran for a little longer.
They were prepared to hold on to him this year, too, at least as long as the team was winning. That crazy little delusion lasted precisely six days before the Royals went into a free fall.
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But that’s the chance you take in this crazy game, where money talks, free agents walk and the Royals trade away another star because they can’t afford him.