Jose Guillen isn't going to make it easy on the Royals to trade him.
The 34-year old outfielder told Jeffrey Flanagan of FOX Sports Kansas City on Wednesday the following:
"This organization when I came here, it was not what I thought it was going to be," he said. "The atmosphere. I was expecting a lot of fire and winning attitude. And it wasn't any of that. None of that. I tried to say some things and do some things to change the atmosphere and then people went 'Oh, here goes Jose Guillen again.' But, hey, I don't like to babysit guys. You try to tell young guys some things, they get their feelings hurt. That's Little League stuff."
He goes on to say that Ned Yost "is bringing back something here again. You see that? He's old school. We need that."
Stupid at worst and hypocritical at best because his following statement goes on to indicate that, in his reality, Yost isn't "bringing something back here again."
"Fundamentally, this is one of the worst teams in all of baseball. This is true. I've been here for three years. I know everything that's going on. We're one of the worst teams fundamentally. Why do we get 14 or 15 hits and we score one or two runs. How does that happen? Lack of concentration. Lack of being smart."
So he says that when he got here, things were bad and the players didn't know how to do the little things (fundamentals!) they were supposed to learn in the minor leagues. Implicit in that "when I came here" part of the comment is that these things aren't going on anymore but he then goes on to explain that, indeed, these things are still going on.
Not only do you not call out your teammates like that but factually, he's incorrect. In fact, he's not even close, as the Martin Manley of the Kansas City Star explains.
Giving him the benefit of the doubt and going with only 14 instead of 15 hits and scoring 2 instead of 1 run, it has only happened three times in Royals' history that the team has had 14+ hits and scored 2 (or less) runs (1977, 1983, 1994).
Look, it's no secret the Royals would like to trade Guillen. He's entering the final year of his contract, playing pretty good ball and has no future with Kansas City. The Royals are so desperate to move that they're reportedly telling teams they're willing to take a sizable hit on the $6+ million he's got remaining on his three-year, $36 million deal he signed in 2007. That's about as easy as it gets when it comes to determining whether to trade someone.
However, the biggest reason a team wouldn't take a chance on Guillen is because of some of the "Oh, here goes Jose Guillen again" type of comments. And what does Guillen do a month before the trade deadline? He makes more "Oh, here goes Jose Guillen again" comments.
Last week, Sam Mellinger of the Kansas City Star said the Royals should deal now and worry about return later. I was against that idea....until Jose started being Jose again.
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