Mellinger Minutes: Les Miles gets worse, and when will the Kansas City Royals get better?
Well, first: read this.
The link is Jesse Newell’s terrifically reported story detailing a former Kansas football player who told his coaches about threats from teammates, and the wild chain of events that led to the school paying him to home and keep quiet.
You should read the story, if you haven’t already. Here’s the link again.
There are a million takeaways from the piece, from the precarious existence of college athletes, the lack of stability, how institutional support can be fleeting and the ways athletic departments sometimes fail the athletes they claim to support.
But, really, the part I keep getting hung up on is the comprehensive lack of leadership.
Maybe that’s my bad. Maybe that’s me being naive, because Les Miles lost enough assistant coaches who left for less-than-impressive promotions that a lack of leadership shouldn’t be a surprise.
Jeff Long waited until the winds changed to see the light on NIL, took no account for his past mistakes, and did David Beaty so dirty that a lack of leadership should not have been a surprise.
But, still. Responding to a legitimate claim of abuse by telling the accuser to have it out with the accused on the practice field? Long’s name being left off the smoking gun agreement? Choosing one side or the other presumably based not on values or culture but which players are more important to a team headed nowhere?
That’s not leadership.
That’s not manhood.
That’s petty, soft, destructive and counterproductive.
Miles was supposed to rescue a culture that had turned to mold after years of bad decisions. Instead, he appears to have made it even worse with a different brand of incompetence.
It’s wild that Miles went 0-9 and somehow things have gotten even worse since — he’s forced out after sexual misconduct allegations while at LSU, then his AD was out after … I don’t even know where to start.
The athletic department took a much needed cleaning recently. I don’t know AD Travis Goff or deputy AD Jason Booker well, but I do know enough people who know them well to believe they’re smart, creative and motivated by the right reasons.
David Reed is among the holdovers and his fingerprints are smeared all over the mess Newell uncovered. We’ll see what happens with him.
The culture is broken. The jobs of Goff and new football coach Lance Leipold are even more difficult than we had reason to believe.
The irony is that Miles — a wildly accomplished and experienced coach — chose short-term over long-term, chose a chase for on-field success over culture, and the result was that he lost it all.
I’m not stupid. I understand that coaches make decisions like this often, and that a lot of times they get what they hoped for. They get the wins, and they’re able to kick the rest down the road.
But for that to work you need some built-in capital, some credibility and infrastructure built in to absorb any fallout. Miles didn’t have that, and Leipold hasn’t had time to build it.
Here’s hoping that no matter how it goes on the field that Leipold runs the program like a qualified adult. It’s been a while since KU football has had that.
But, again: read the story.
This week’s eating recommendation is the Dagwood sandwich at Dagwood’s Cafe and the reading recommendation is Rustin Dodd on Shohei Ohtani.
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There’s a lot to unpack here. I almost wrote on this Sunday night, but I figured we’d have a lot of questions here with the Minutes so this is where we’re starting.
The Royals did not take the best player on their board. The pick surprised me, maybe even shocked me, and I’m not shocked by a lot.
My expectation was that the Royals would take Kumar Rocker if he was available, with an outside chance of Jordan Lawlar. Those are the guys who best fit the profile of what the Royals’ recent drafts have shown them to prioritize.
Rocker is a brand name, an established commodity. He is a high floor starting pitcher with charisma, a smart man who has shown himself dedicated to the craft. There was a time that he was expected to be the first overall pick in this draft. This is an awful way to think about it, and a worse way to run a draft, but the Royals would have received nothing but praise for taking Rocker.
Jordan Lawlar is a toolsy Texas high school shortstop — fast, powerful, good arm, solid bat, with an advanced maturity. He is said to have a personality that matches his chosen profession — steady, determined, positive, ambitious. Again: the Royals would have received nothing but praise for taking Lawlar.
As it happened, Lawlar went sixth to the Diamondbacks, so we’ll never know if the Royals would have taken him. The Royals — and, it’s worth pointing out, six teams before them and two more after — passed on Rocker.
My read on this is that the Royals were not nearly as sold on Rocker as the industry generally assumed. My assumption is they saw a combination of low ceiling and high asking price that didn’t sit well.
Now, if you told me the pick wasn’t going to be Lawlar or Rocker I still would have had a bunch of guesses before getting to Frank Mozzicato — Brady House, for one, and Kahlil Watson for another.
I get the criticism. Completely. The Royals don’t shop in the free-agent aisle where Bryce Harper and Manny Machado sit. Their shot at high-end talent is through the draft and internationally. Even with the draft’s unpredictability, a reasonable case can be made that teams like the Royals should go all-in on the highest ceiling, best talent possible.
Ride the hits hard, and if you miss maybe you get another high pick and try again. That’s a reasonable strategy. I get it. Criticizing them for getting too cute is also reasonable. I get it.
Here’s another reasonable strategy: spread your bets, especially if you believe certain guys are undervalued, with high ceilings similar to those who cost more.
The Royals have done this before. They took Hunter Dozier eighth overall in 2013, and paid him $2.2 million — slightly less than the 15th overall pick signed for. The strategy allowed them to go over slot with the 33rd pick, giving Sean Manaea $3.55 million — slightly more than the fifth pick signed for.
They also considered the strategy two years ago. They had serious discussions about going under slot at No. 2 overall to get more talent on the back end.
MLB’s limits on what each team can spend in the draft mean teams are always looking for an edge. The strategy isn’t about saving money. It’s about, essentially, deciding whether to go all-in on one guy or getting two or three that you feel good about.
For me, I think it’s smart to use different strategies for different moments. A club that sticks with one way of doing things is probably a club that lacks creativity and vision.
There was a time that Dayton Moore wanted to move Kauffman Stadium’s fences in and win with five starters who each went 200 innings. He built a World Series champion that finished next-to-last in home runs with one of the best bullpens in recent baseball history.
Which isn’t to say I don’t have a criticism of the Royals’ pick. It’s just not the criticism most people seem to have.
My question is about the history of high school pitchers taken high in the draft. That’s where the fairest criticism should be. Or, at least, that’s where my criticism would be. It’s often said that pitching prospects will break your heart, and I believe that’s particularly true of high school pitching prospects.
Just going through Baseball Reference’s draft database, in the 10 drafts between 2007 and 2016* teams took 19 high school pitchers in the top 10.
* I stopped it there with the idea that you need at least five years to judge a draft.
Just one of them — Madison Bumgarner, who Royals fans have heard of — turned into a No. 1 big league starter.
Maybe you’d also include Zack Wheeler. He’s certainly having a terrific season. But none of the 17 high school picks other than Bumgarner and Wheeler have achieved 10 career WAR. Eleven have less than 1 WAR, including six who have not yet pitched in the big leagues.
College pitchers are no sure thing either, but in that same time frame top 10 picks have included David Price, Stephen Strasburg, Gerrit Cole, Trevor Bauer and Aaron Nola.
Now, the truth is that none of this current debate matters. If Mozzicato comes close to what the Royals envision, he will be adored and the scouting department praised. If he doesn’t, and the Royals don’t get any bump from having more money to spend on later picks, then they’ll get clowned. That’s how this works.
The undeniable fact is that right now the Royals are getting nobody’s benefit of the doubt.
Which is a little ironic because from 2006 to 2012, when any criticism of the Royals was well received, they were making the decisions that directly led to the run of success. And from 2013 to 2016 or so, when any praise of the Royals wasn’t enough, they were making the decisions that directly led to the struggles of the last few years.
But, that’s the way the world works.
Let’s talk more about the Royals!
This is the question of the day. Of the week. Of the season, really.
We can do this on many levels.
In pure on-the-field stuff, the Royals’ playoff hopes were realistic but based heavily on hope, health, and catching some breaks. The Royals’ hopes have been crushed largely by injuries and bad luck.
Let’s do this in two parts. First, the offense.
Before the season, there was reasonable belief that Jorge Soler and Hunter Dozier would be above-average big league hitters. There was reasonable belief that Adalberto Mondesi would at least play some excellent shortstop with the chance of a breakout at the plate.
Add in some expected reliability from Sal Perez, Whit Merrifield and Andrew Benintendi, there were some pieces you could dream on — Nicky Lopez, Michael A. Taylor, Kyle Isbel, Ryan O’Hearn, others — there was reason to believe the offense could be top half of the American League.
But, now … what would the expectation have been if you knew that Mondesi would provide virtually nothing and that Soler and Dozier would be net-negatives?
The whole thing falls apart pretty quickly.
Now let’s do the pitchers.
Before the season, there was reasonable belief that Brad Keller would continue his ascent or at least maintain his place as one of the league’s most dependable starting pitchers. Mike Minor came to eat innings and be reliable. Danny Duffy was healthy.
Brady Singer needed a third pitch but had enough ancillary strengths to believe in. Kris Bubic, Jackson Kowar and Daniel Lynch were developing and expected to be ready at some point. The bullpen was very good last year, but 60 games is a lot different than 162. There were some questions about the depth there, but a few guys — Barlow, Staumont, Holland, mostly — who could be depended on. Jakob Junis had a lot of positive momentum.
Well, at the moment the Royals are essentially operating with three starting pitchers and none of them are performing — Minor and Keller have been two of the worst in the league, and Singer has been OK overall but unreliable.
Mike Matheny is managing with an urgency and focus on winning every night. That’s a change from how the Royals have operated the last few years. It’s part of why they started 16-9, but the downside is that the bullpen can get overworked, particularly when the starters don’t go deep enough.
The Royals’ plan was always vulnerable to a few realistic bad-luck scenarios, and the reality has been that several of those bad-luck scenarios happened together, and snowballed.
A playoff spot or even contention in September was always a long shot, but there is just no way this group of players should be this bad, even with the injuries.
Barring a drastic turnaround in the second half — a special story, is how Mike Matheny put it — this is headed toward the most disappointing Royals season since the Our Time disaster of 2012, and maybe even longer.
They have a lot of guys who just need to see some success.
Hunter Dozier is the most obvious guy here, but there are others — Andrew Benintendi, Adalberto Mondesi, Kyle Isbel, Brad Keller, Kris Bubic, Jackson Kowar, Daniel Lynch … the list is long.
There are a lot of guys here who just need to feel something good again. More than anything else, that would be the biggest boost going into 2022 and beyond.
But I suspect that’s not what you’re asking about.
If it was me, I’d listen on anyone and everyone, and be particularly motivated to trade Danny Duffy. He’s a free agent, so maybe he’d be open to waiving the no-trade power he earned with 10 years of service time with the Royals. It would be a chance for him to join a contender, maybe pitch in the playoffs and, if things go well, boost his free-agent value.
But I’d also listen on others. Maybe a contender wants a reliable hitter like Carlos Santana, or bullpen help from Scott Barlow. Whit Merrifield’s general value across the industry has not matched his production, but maybe that changes.
Moore and the Royals have talked about becoming more transactional, and this is a good time to start. There are complications every year with trades, and the market this month could be bonkers — according to FanGraphs, 15 teams have less than a 10% chance to make the playoffs.
I’d also see if we could find regular plate appearances for Edward Olivares, to see if he’s a starting outfielder, a fourth outfielder or a AAAA guy. I’d want to see Lynch and Kowar again, this time under less pressure. Same with Isbel. I suspect we’ll see Bobby Witt Jr. at some point.
The details can be worked out, but the broad strokes are depressingly similar — this will be a losing season, but try to make sure it’s not a completely lost season.
I know it’s just one game, and I know the season was slipping away long before, but for me that 15-1 loss on getaway day in Boston hit hard.
That was the first time the body language and other indicators said those guys were mentally beat. They’d had some rough losses before, but that one was lifeless, the ninth consecutive loss that was like saying Uncle.
They actually won three of the next five, but a four-game losing streak into the break — including consecutive walk-offs in Cleveland — put things back.
I know we’ve talked about this already, but it’s plain as day — the Royals have had more than their share of bad breaks, but there is simply no excuse for the season to go this far off the rails. I can’t imagine anyone in that clubhouse or coaching staff would disagree.
I still believe there’s a winning group in there, somewhere. I still believe the young pitchers will figure it out, and I believe that Mondesi will stay healthy for more than a week at a time, and I still believe the success they’re having in the minor leagues will translate.
There’s a lot of interesting stuff going on in that organization behind the scenes. But it’s hard to make that case right now. They stink.
This is an example of some of what I was talking about earlier.
The Royals just don’t have a lot of good options right now. Not in the lineup, and not with the pitching staff.
Because, yes, you’re right — the starters haven’t been good the third time through.
But the problem isn’t Matheny riding his starters too long — the Royals are 29th in rotation innings.
The problem is that Matheny’s choice in the fifth or sixth is often whether to use a starter who struggles the third time through or overwork a bullpen that’s already been overworked.
They have bodies for the bullpen, but they also have four guys there on the IL and others who haven’t been reliable.
The problem with the Davis-Soler trade wasn’t the value.
Soler has actually been more valuable by both FanGraphs’ and Baseball Reference’s versions of WAR than Davis since the trade. Soler’s 2019 season alone is nearly twice as valuable as any season Davis has had since the trade.
The problem with that trade is that it didn’t fit a realistic plan.
Some of you have heard me talk about this before, but after 2016 the Royals had a decision that would shape the next five years.
They could either break off the sellable pieces and jumpstart the rebuild with an influx of talent and higher picks, or they could go all-in and make the most of 2017 (and, hopefully, a year or two more) by keeping good players and adding more.
If it’s me, I see what the trade market is like and if it’s not enough I go all-in. But either strategy could have been honestly defended.
The Royals’ mistake — and this is not hindsight — is that they tried to do both, at the direction of ownership. They tried to build for the future while winning now, and by trying to do both they ended up doing neither.
Davis-for-Soler is a fine trade, but it needed to be part of other trades, too.
And if the club didn’t have the stomach for those trades — it’s true that many fans would have flipped if the Royals dealt Hosmer and Cain and others — then they needed to have the stomach to actually try to win.
It’s the biggest mistake the club has made in the last decade.
This seems to be an unpopular take these days, but I believe in Dayton Moore, and I’ll tell you why.
He turned down opportunities in bigger markets and with bigger payrolls and came here because he had ties to the area and wanted to help build a team people cared about. After he won, he again turned down bigger money and market.
He immediately attracted talented people to work with him, many of whom made lateral moves from more successful organizations because they wanted to be part of it.
The Royals built slowly but consistently, becoming the first time to increase its win total in six consecutive seasons. The path was bumpy. There were several times many in Kansas City wanted him fired, and indeed a time or two that many owners would have fired him.
He did not make a panic personnel move, instead believing in the work and the people he hired to do the work. The Royals made their first postseason in 29 years, and the next year became — depending on how you look at the Marlins — the first small-money club to win a World Series since the strike.
The way people who have worked with him talk about him is different.
“Dayton’s biggest problem is he’s the only one out of 30 general managers who gives a (spit) about players,” said one baseball lifer who’s been in many places.
It’s my favorite line I’ve heard, because it gets pretty close to capturing the whole thing.
The people who work with and for him would generally do anything for him, and that’s not how it always goes in a cutthroat business where everyone is a commodity.
But it’s probably also true that that sincerity can get in the way. Even if he thought it was best, for instance, I think he would have had a hard time pushing back against ownership and trading those guys after 2016.
Moore is in an interesting spot. This is his 16th full season in a job where most guys don’t last half that long. I don’t know how much longer he’ll be the general manager, but I do know that his legacy here will be an Ink Blot test.
Some of you will three winning seasons in more than a decade; others will never forget the parade.
My suspicion is that as time goes on the wins will outweigh the losses in the memories of most. We’re all entitled to our own views on these things.
But every time I hear a fan say he should be fired I think that whenever the Royals go to hire their next general manager they’ll probably want someone a lot like Moore — comfortable and even motivated by the economic challenges, success from a small market, and extensive experience building a farm system.
This one is interesting.
Because being charged with a felony is an objectively bad thing, and the maximum of three years in prison is also not awesome. But almost nobody gets the maximum, and this will almost certainly be pleaded down.
At some point, the league will have a decision to make. A suspension for conduct detrimental to the league would void his $18.5 million guarantee for 2021, and allow the Chiefs to request $11.4 million of his signing bonus back.
But if we’re talking purely about football here, I don’t see how that helps the Chiefs. They wouldn’t be able to use that money on a stud free agent for 2021. Those guys are gone.
Frank Clark is another Ink Blot test. The Chiefs objectively overpaid for him. There is no logical argument otherwise now when you consider the draft capital and contract.
Clark also bossed his way through the 2019 playoffs, and was a critical part of a Super Bowl championship. I can sit here all day long and say Christian Colon over Chris Sale is a mistake of galactic proportions, but Colon also had two of the biggest postseason hits in Royals history, so the argument loses some juice.
Either way, this is almost certainly Clark’s last season with the Chiefs. They can save $13.4 million in cap space by cutting him after this season, and his production and impact have not earned the benefit of the doubt.
But, more than anything else, I just want to know what the heck he’s doing with an Uzi.
And why he doesn’t do a better job of hiding it.
Not to get all Clinton on you here, but it depends on your definition of “fix.”
Everything I’ve heard is that Bally’s expects to have a direct-to-consumer option by next year, but they have not announced a price, and I’m not expecting a completely smooth transition.
I know I’ve written a lot about this, but it’s not getting any easier to fathom how broadly and badly Bally’s screwed this up.
To be caught flat footed like this is without explanation. The technology for a reasonable solution — a subscription app that people can download to their phones and smart TVs — has existed for years.
Bally’s could have developed that and offered it this season, or struck a deal with the most widely used streaming platforms. Doing neither has caused the company and its partner nothing but problems.
I am not a businessman, but someone will have to explain to me how this is a good way to make money and serve customers in 2021.
Agreed.
Busio has some doing before he matches the USMNT caps of Besler or Zusi, and nobody can say with certainty that he’ll play in a World Cup.
But he’s also 19 years old. Besler is a fantastic soccer player and a bona fide Kansas City legend. When he was 19 years old, he was a sophomore at Notre Dame. Graham Zusi was a freshman at Maryland at 19.
Busio is the evolution. He is more physically gifted than Besler and Zusi, and he appears to have the same instincts and feel. I kind of hate the comparisons, actually, because they end up diminishing the careers of two men whose names will be on the wall at Children’s Mercy Park.
Busio will soon be sold to a European club, and if things go well then maybe that club will sell him to an even bigger club. He will likely play in the World Cup someday, perhaps as early as next summer.
When he does, he’ll be taking Kansas City with him in some ways. He’ll soon leave, but Kansas City will remain. That’s how this works. That’s how this works when it works, at least.
And if Sporting Kansas City has its way, at some point relatively soon we’ll be talking about another teenage phenom about to be sold to a European club and comparing him to Busio.
I’m assuming this is a reference to Bukayo Saka, who missed the decisive penalty kick for England in the Euro final on Sunday.
I literally cannot imagine that level of pressure — the Euros are not quite the World Cup, but also not far off, and it’s hard not to believe that the Brits’ wild obsession with soccer doesn’t have something to do with the national team’s abysmal record in tournament shootouts.
I had a bit of a rooting interest there because Saka is one of the few good parts of Arsenal, the team I follow, and now I can’t help but wonder how he’ll be mentally in a country with a level of fandom that makes any nasty tweet to a rival’s college football signee look like child’s play.
There is this tendency sometimes to wonder if wins and losses affect professional athletes as much as fans, and for me that’s a false choice because the perspectives are so different.
The thing I think about here is the unnatural spots that our sports obsession creates for young athletes who do not have a lot of life experience outside extremely specific training.
Saka is a terrific talent, and when in doubt it’s best to bet on talent. But, man. Kid is barely old enough to vote and now feels like he let his entire country down.
If these are my choices, I’m going IPA followed by Natty Light. You can send that hard seltzer out to play in traffic.
But if I have a normal bar to play with I’m leading off with tequila and soda and then riding it out with Banquet. And if you have some chips and guac please send them my way.
Look man, for all the things we can criticize Kansas City about, I don’t think Touting Good Things About Kansas City is one of them.
Although I do think that if the Royals are serious about building a consistent winner instead of the roller coaster of the last 10 years they could do worse than to study the ruthlessness, detail, and relentless long-term thinking of Sporting Kansas City.
Either that or draft a raspy voiced unicorn.
Well, I know this isn’t what you’re looking for, but the worst place to watch an event and do the work of a sports writer is any indoor swimming pool on a hot day.
My god.
I don’t complain about this job much — in part because there’s not a lot to complain about — but that’s not too far from my personal hell. It’s something like 185 degrees in those things when it’s hot out, and you’re sitting there wondering why you’re even there because it’s not like you can break down the strategy of the 400 IM or the form of the 50 free. You’re basically just sitting there, marinating in your own sweat, waiting to talk to a coach and some swimmers.
Two lessons I learned from being around high school sports — don’t ever fight a former high school wrestler, and if you hear someone was a high-level competitive swimmer then you 100 percent have a badass in front of you who will outwork you with an unnatural focus.
But I do vaguely recall a high school football game where we had to climb a ladder to get to the press box. This isn’t something I should say out loud, but I remember being more worried about dropping my POS computer than I was about falling and breaking my back.
This week I’m particularly grateful for one of the best family vacations we’ve ever made. Our 5-year-old took a nasty black eye from a freak accident and wore it like a man. Our 7-year-old kayaked about 2 1/2 miles across a lake and back. Watching them grow up is the ride of a lifetime.