Mr. Misty

The Royals have apparently already given up on the “Lucas May to catcher” experiment, which began months before we actually traded for him near the deadline last season.  It looked for sure like the Royals were at least going to give him a shot to platoon with Bryan Pena for a while at the Major League level, at least until (God help us) Jason Kendall comes off the disabled list to reclaim his job of NOT hitting while plugging up the 2-spot, and NOT throwing anybody out from behind the plate.

But he’s durable.  Or was durable, anyway.

Now the Royals have traded for Matt Treanor*, and May’s future with Kansas City is severely in doubt—he has no options, and as far as I know, the Royals may have cut him already.  For the life of me, I cannot understand this move.

*By the way, Matt Treanor has done nothing in sports more notable than marrying Misty May, possibly the greatest beach volleyball player of all time.  Unlike Treanor, Chuck Finley was actually a baseball player who didn’t completely suck, but he’ll still forever be known to me as “Chucky Kitaen,” because of his marriage to Tawny Kitaen from the Whitesnake videos.  In the same sense, Matt Treanor, to me, will always be “Mr. Misty May.”  And as long as Dairy Queen doesn’t catch wind of it, he will be “Mr. Misty,” for short.

OH, and for another “by the way,” there’s a link between Mr. Misty and Kendall—1980s MTV.  While Mr. Misty parallels Finley, whose wife got practically naked on a car while “Here I go Again on My Own” rocked the audio track, Jason Kendall has his own MTV link—his wife was stolen by Rod Steward’s son, who once played the little curly-head boy in his dad’s  “Forever Young” video.  I’ll bet they play the entire season together, and no one BUT ME will ever point out this undeniable link.  Do not doubt my genius.

Were not Pena and May considered mere stop-gaps for Salvador Perez in a year or two, with the LEAST tradable of the two eventually becoming Perez’ backup?  I mean, we kind of know what we have in Pena, and it’s OK—a reasonably gifted switch hitter who is a good teammate, a good clubhouse guy and a guy who could probably be a decent backup catcher for 10 years in the league.  In May, we didn’t know yet—he showed some signs of decent pop in the minors.  And we know he was struggling a little in his switch from shortstop to catcher.  But what in the world was it going to hurt to give him a little longer look in the bigs?

Now we’re a month or two from the scenario of having two supremely OLD and UNTALENTED catchers behind the plate for a team that’s going to lose 90 games.  Neither of whom are anywhere near being in our long-term plans, nor will either will draw an ounce of interest to bring us anything back.

This entire spring, with regard to all of this nonsense of Kendall being ready for opening day, or maybe coming back after 15 days on the DL, the only constantly sane voice in my head has been that of Chevy Chase, repeating one of his great lines in the underrated Cold War era comedy, “Spies Like Us”:

“Cut the sucker.”

Why Kendall is on this team is WAY beyond me.  We’re not on the hook for THAT much salary (and our payroll is already embarrassingly low), he’s not a part of our future, and he’s not going to help us win NOW or EVER.

But instead of cutting the old, untalented catcher that we already had (which would allow our younger guys a chance to show whether they can play or not), we turn around and add ANOTHER old, untalented catcher to the fold.

Welcome to the Mr. Misty era at Kauffman Stadium.  I’m sure there’s a reason for it, but count me among those who fail to see what it possibly could be.