Sam Mellinger

The Kansas City Star

Dwayne Bowe yesterday, Mizzou tonight, Royals spring training tomorrow and K-State on Saturday. Busy week, perfect way to start my favorite sports month of the year.

Anyway, there is no smooth way to transition to this so you might’ve seen where Rupert Murdoch is trying to crowd ESPN’s all-sports TV marketshare. These types of things have failed before — anyone remember CNN/SI? — but it’s always seemed strange to me that there’s not been a more worthy competitor to ESPN.

Who knows how this will turn out^, but in reading up on this it struck me that ESPN generates $10.3 billion in revenue from its networks, website and magazine.

^ I have a guess on the future, though, and it looks a lot like the present.

That’s ten-point-three billion. More than the NBA. More than major league baseball. More than the NFL, even. Damn.

Anyway, this week’s reading recommendation is this fabulous piece of reporting in Mother Jones magazine by Ian Gordon. The eating recommendation is the wagyu burger at Tannin, which I know I’ve linked to here before, but I had it again yesterday and man it’s good.

Let’s get to it. As always, thanks for your help.

@kent_swanson Please remind us that changes are coming beyond JUST Alex Smith. There’s more moves to be made.

Yesterday was a terrific day for the Chiefs. You don’t get better letting your best players go, and it’s important the Chiefs are keeping their best players. They also immediately addressed their awful quarterback situation. But you’re right, nobody should be thinking about the parade route quite yet.

Even with Bowe retained, wide receiver might be their biggest need. It’s either than or cornerback or a good backup (preferably young) quarterback to push Smith, whose injury history is my biggest concern.

Because look at it like this … the Chiefs will be better in 2013 because they can’t get much worse and Andy Reid is a much better coach than Romeo Crennel. But right now, they still have Javier Arenas or Jalil Brown covering the other team’s second-best receiver, Jon Baldwin or Devon Wylie is still their own second-best receiver, and they’re still in the very Pioli position of having a zero at backup quarterback^.

^ Matt Cassel is technically still on the roster, and would actually be a very good backup quarterback. But he can’t stay in Kansas City. And he won’t.

So, yeah. Still a lot of work to do. It’s also incredibly early in the offseason. Draft is still like six weeks away.

@Droa26 Your opinion on who the Chiefs should go after in FA.

I’m going to largely echo what Teicher wrote last week, and this goes along with the previous answer. They desperately need (at least) one more receiver, (at least) one more good cornerback (and, like Teicher points out, preferably big) and a backup quarterback with upside.

I don’t really care what they do in free agency vs the draft. I don’t think it really matters, other than it’d be nice to see them draft and develop a quarterback for once. But if they bring in Matt Moore to be the backup, someone like that, cool.

@HalfwayToHobo Does Pioli get an extension w/Bowe, or was the relationship too poisoned? Would he even try? Never sensed Pioli much liked Bowe.

The easy answer is to say no, and that may be the right answer. I’m not sure about this either way, though. The circumstances in which John Dorsey signed Bowe to a long-term contract are different than the circumstances in which Scott Pioli did not.

Executives in all sports like to say you don’t make decisions until you have to, and Pioli didn’t have to make the decision on Bowe. He had the franchise tag as a safety net, and used it. And I always got the sense — perhaps wrongly — that Bowe appreciated the structure put in after Pioli arrived.

Like I wrote in the column: Pioli can and should be criticized for a lot, but not how he handled Bowe.

@informedblackmn Do you think Pioli would have drafted Lauren ‘two-kick’ Silberman as a first or second rounder?

If she understood the importance of not wasting office paper, sure.

@Mike_Ippolito what direction will the Chiefs go for with the #1pick?

This is the other cool part of what the Chiefs did yesterday. They have options. They retained every possible option they could have to make their team better. They can take Luke Joeckel first overall, play either him or Branden Albert at right tackle and let Eric Winston go.

They can keep Winston, have Albert at left tackle, and draft Alabama’s Dee Milliner to play cornerback. They could trade Albert. They could trade the No. 1 pick. They could trade both. Neither. Whatever.

If I was in charge — and we’re all thankful I’m not — I’d look at trading the pick. If I couldn’t get what I considered value for it, I’d take Milliner.

@kctacoparty do good nfl teams get this excited about resigning players or is it just a we-care-because-we-suck thing? #tt

Well, I think good NFL teams know when to walk away from their players. And I think after four years of a GM who seemed more interested in strange agendas that were at best tangentially related to winning football games, it’s nice to see one who’s improving the roster. That, and if the Chiefs didn’t take Bowe they were completely screwed at wide receiver.

@foxxman531 Royals have highest payroll ever, and Chiefs sign important players w/out yelling? Is there something in KC water?

Been getting a lot of this…

@Speck60 I’ve spent my whole day not complaining about the Chiefs and Royals. What do I do now? #TwitterTuesday

…and the optimism is a nice break, but it’s also worth noting that the optimism comes as the Chiefs are still about six months from the season and the Royals are playing games that don’t count.

Don’t you love Kansas City?

@bmalcolm88 How awesome is it that The Worm is the US’s new ambassador to N Korea? #TT

This truly might be the most absurd “news” in my adult lifetime. Has anyone made themselves a bigger fool on a serious news show?

@BobbyCave Okay, seriously, dont toy with us now, okay? Are the Royals for real? Even Heyman seems to thinks so, so…#cautiousoptimism

That’s part of what I’ll get at this week. Look, there’s no doubt they’ll be better. They simply have to be. The two candidates for last year’s opening day are now fighting with a third candidate for the fifth rotation spot. The Royals still might have the youngest everyday lineup in baseball, so you have to assume they’ll improve. The bullpen is solid.

But at least right now, I’m not quite as optimistic as most. I’m expecting 79 or 80 wins, something like that, with the possibility of raising it after I see spring training.

Small programming note: I’m headed back to Surprise March 18-20, and am planning on doing the Royals over/under then. A particularly terrific reader has a program that might completely change how we do it. At the very least, there probably won’t be a cap on the entrants this year.

@mrchipdouglas would you rather take a HBP from Kelvin Herrera or get beat in a foot race by Billy Butler? #TT

Herrera, no question. Because that’s a story you can tell, almost like a badge of honor. You take a picture of the bruise, you tell your buddies about it, drink a little whiskey to dull the pain and you’re all good.

If you get beat by Billy, that’s not a story you can tell.

@mitchopkins Piggy-backing off last weeks @ThisAmerLife, tell us your greatest coincidence. #TTlateedition

My wife was my date to the ninth grade formal. How’s that?

@bdn723 What are your feelings about John Stamos being on the next Black Keys album? #twittertuesday

Lloyd Christmas, at the 42 second mark here:

@ksubmac Obligatory Trout Tweet #doingmellingersjobforhim

Thank you. His agent needs to shut up. I don’t like sticking up for The Man like this, but it’s within the Angels rights to give him a small raise. That’s part of the CBA that the players — and their agents — negotiated, the same CBA that makes baseball players absurdly rich and the most powerful union in the country.

Players take advantage of every edge the CBA gives them, and they should. Nobody begrudges them that. So when the team does the same, it should work the same way.

The agent’s whining comes across very self-serving, too, because he gets a percentage of Trout’s salary. That salary is going up, no question, and he will be absurdly rich soon enough. Because the CBA the players and agents negotiated gives them that right.

@alhenton Denis Clemente or Phil Pressey? #TwitterTuesday

Pressey. Clemente is one of the few college basketball players in recent memory faster than Pressey, and he also played at that speed while staying in better control than Pressey. But Clemente can’t do what Pressey can do, can’t impact a game like Pressey can. I also thought Pullen was the better guard, and allowed Clemente to shine.

If you asked me about Pullen vs Pressey, I’d take Pullen. Such a badass.

@Speck60 Hypothetically, Mizzou, K-State and kansas being in the Kansas City bracket of the Big Dance would be awesome. Thoughts? #TT

Preach.

@Thuettenmueller is it bad that I don’t really want KU to be a 1 seed, mainly in fear of being the first #1 to lose to a 16 seed?

Yes. That is bad. Very bad.

@justprego How many national championships for Bill Self the day he walks away from KU? #TT

I say he gets one more.

@The_Logg if KU and KState win out, will KState fans know deep down that they didn’t actually WIN the Big XII? Can you remind them? #TT

I don’t understand this. The Logg — I don’t think that’s his real name — writes back to clarify he knows some of KU’s conference championships have come when they’ve lost the tiebreaker and did not have the No. 1 seed in the league tournament, but says this is different, I presume because KU beat K-State twice.

But I still don’t understand this. If they finish with the same record, they tie. This is how most conferences operate. Self himself said last week he didn’t have a problem with it, that if you play everybody twice and you end with the same record, it’s a tie, done.

KU’s benefited from the don’t-break-ties-when-it-comes-to-banners thing before. The Jayhawks would have the No. 1 seed, but K-State would get a banner, too. Plus…

@bmalcolm88 If KU wins out and KSU ends one game back, then that awful call in Ames screwed the Cats out of a title. Make it stop. #TT

…there’s always two sides. I’ll also point out that everything we’re talking about is assuming K-State wins in Stillwater on Saturday, which will be awfully tough. Oklahoma State is the most talented team in the league, and Gallagher-Iba is a terrible place to go try to win a game.

@GabrielRiekhof what will Mizzou’s final record be?

I say they beat Arkansas tonight, beat Tennessee on Saturday (tough game), then win two in the SEC tournament and one in the NCAA Tournament. That’s a 5-2 finish, 26-10 overall.

@RoyalsFreeOut How do you explain the sudden surge of horribly officiated games in college athletics? #TT

I don’t have a good answer, other than wondering if this is one of those situations where we only remember what’s happening this season. I bet if you went back to last year, or the year before, or four years ago, you’d find a bunch of terrible calls. A lot of them by John Higgins, too.

So, that’s my answer. Satisfied?

@RoyalsFreeOut Wrong. It’s because God hates Missouri. #TT

Oh.

@ClintT13 If KU gets to 12 Big XII titles, do they get asterisk? UCLA won all 12 outright. KU has shared some. Still impressive obviously.

If people think four more conference titles would make this run by KU equal to what UCLA did back in the day, I don’t think an asterisk would explain it to them.

@ksubmac If KSU wins out & loses to KU in Big12 champ, does that get a 2seed in NCAA tourney?

I don’t know. Maybe. There are too many other factors to make anything other than a guess here, but I’ll say this: I’m sure Joe Lunardi is a nice man. I assume he pays his taxes, opens doors for women, listens when his friends need to talk.

But, c’mon, that guy is stealing money. God bless him, I can’t fault the hustle, but his job — far as I can tell — is to start guessing at something months before we get the answer with the safety net of changing his guesses every week or so. He’s somehow become the name brand for this type of speculation, despite not actually being awesome at it.

Again, good for him and his family. But I don’t get it.

@CU_Roo If you were a beer what would you be? A peak into Sam’s soul. I see you as a PBR #Twittertuesday

Is this another hipster joke?

@NDRoyalsFan will my role model meet me for a beer at Royals home opener? if so you buying? #TT

Who’s your role model? If it’s me, I think you should aim higher. And I’d love to meet for a beer at the game, but — and I understand the confusion — I stay sober when I’m working.

@AlanSwansonmed8 Kansas City gets recognition in Europe about their soccer players and yet no one seems to notice in KC?

I guess I disagree with your premise. Sporting sells out all its home games. I saw the other day where Kansas City has the fourth-highest percentage of soccer fans among 19 MLS markets.

I think I’ve been pretty clear that I adore what Sporting’s done — with one exception, of course — but one thing that gets old is this sense from SOME fans that nobody knows they exist.

There are some people in Kansas City who actively dislike soccer, and some who, literally, could not care less about the sport. But there is a big number of passionate fans, too, and it’s growing every day. I don’t think any sports fans here are unaware of Sporting. I think fans who only like the other local teams wish their own teams operated a lot more like Sporting. Kei Kamara’s loan to the EPL was big news here.

Be proud. There are a ton of reasons.

@informedblackmn Would you please do the dirty work that the Chief’s refuse to do and explain to the world why a wolf is their mascot? #smh

Makes more sense than the lion across the parking lot.

Comments

No comments have been posted. Perhaps you'd like to be the first?

Sign in with Facebook to comment.