Why Baird should have been fired.

Today I want to point out some reasons that Baird SHOULD HAVE BEEN FIRED; nice man or not. I think the overall statement adequately sums my thoughts: Baird was led BY the youth movement, he DID NOT lead it. I had this thought today while listening to sports radio. The topic of discussion was Aaron Guiel (now with the Yankees and went 1-3, 3 Runs scored, 1 BB). Obviously, this is a 1 game sample, so we won't look at it. We will examine his AAA stats and his 2003 stats and then look at who took his CHEAP spot on the outfield (cheap meaning ... less than a MILLION = bargain for Royals).

In 2004 I concede he had terrible eyesight and struggled to make it back to form, which is ok and I commend the decision to put him in the minors till he proved he could hit. But let's lazily look at his AAA line in 2006:

G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI TB BB SO SB CS OBP SLG AVG OPS E
52 177 32 44 14 1 11 32 93 35 45 0 0 .388.525 .249 .914 2

Remember that this is only 52 games. project this 3x and you get some pretty good numbers (though this doesn't "count" b/c players are subject to hot and cold slumps, injuries, etc.).

here's the 03 line.

2003

G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS
99 354 63 98 30 0 15 52 27 63 3 5 .277 .346 .489 .835

On the other hand, lets examine the last few replacement players and their AGES:

2006 : Reggie Sanders, 38 years old, 5 MILLION DOLLARS!:

G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS
64 236 38 59 15 1 9 42 21 70 6 4 .250 .309 .436 .745

2005 : Terrence Long, 28-29 years old, 3 MILLION Dollars!:

G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS
137 455 62 127 21 3 6 53 30 56 3 3 .279 .321 .378 .699

...

What we can see from these lines is that we overpaid for OLD players when we had the resources in the minor leagues.... so back to my original point... the youth movemenet led Baird. Here's what it LOOKS like, not saying this is what happened.... it LOOKS like Baird didn't want to bring Guiel up b/c at the time he was 32-33 years old b/c he preached youth in most spots. What I think he thought could be forgiven was paying money for an older player that was a bigger name; i.e. Reggie... though who the HELL knows what about Long. This happened with Juan Gonzalez in 04, he was replaced by someone who didn't make it a week, but he was a BIG NAME! It looks like he thought he could get away with big name older veterans who didn't fit in with the youth movement, but had big impacts early early early in their careers. unfortunately, he wasted money on players who were passed their prime and didn't add anything to the team. That $$$ could have been used for pitching (don't get me started on FA pitching), or finding younger, bigger names.

This is one reason Baird should have been fired. Let's look at it from a different perspective: let's say it's true that the Glass family intervened quite often into the movings of Allard. Let's say David didn't want Aaron up in the bigs for one reason or another (he's not splashy, he's not what brings the fans in, he's too old with mediocre numbers), Baird should have been fired for not seeminlgy being assertive. It's the GM's job to MAKE the owner understand baseball. That's why owners own teams and hire GMs, b/c they know squat about baseball other than they like to watch and they like to win. It was Baird's job to make Aaron Guiel an attractive potential for the OF. Clearly, we get the sense from Baird's comments and bringing Guiel back that he liked what Aaron did and what his capabilities were. Aaron is the perfect, cheap rent-a-player. We needed a few years before Butler, Lubanski, Huber (now an OF), and Mitch could make it up, so why not use a proven player who is old, but still productive and CHEAP. Why pay Reggie 5 mil for this production when you'd get more from Aaron for 800,000 or less? Wouldn't it be probable that he would retire the minute we brought someone up? He's not the type of player with great numbers to be able to play till 42. If we kept him around till he was 35, 36 (until 2008ish), he still would have been cheap and probably productive (relatively so) for a corner spot. That's why Emil Brown (Limey - EMIL backwards with some Schtick! to it) is an attractive (though hated by me) corner OF.

I think what all of this boils down to is that every year since 2003, Baird thought we had a contender when we did not and he kept bringing in worthless player after worthless player. This all led to Baird's firing b/c he kept rushing the process. Kansas Citians keep claiming that they won't take this team seriously until we replace/d: 1) Limey Brown, 2) Aaron Guiel, & 3) Angel Berroa. While I agree with these feelings, I say we shouldn't have taken this team seriously. In 2005, we should have had an OF of Limey, Guiel, and Dejesus as we let the minor leaguers develop. Baird should have been honest with the city and said that we have players that can help us win now, but we want to let the guys down low develop more b/c they are the future, we don't want to pay 5 million dollars for a rent-a-player. Then, if he had discussed this with these certain players, he could have made them realize this is a place to revitalize their careers and then become valuable role player free agents or traded to a contending team. Sometimes the truth is a bummer, but would you rather have a bummer and know it, or expect something better and have a team winning .250 in their first 3 months?