"I thought I had gone through all the stages of Royals grief. Denial? Well, of course. I love denial. That has been my default stage as a sports fan most of my life. Hey, maybe Denny Bautista will become a star. Hey, maybe this is the year for Dee Brown. Hey, maybe José Guillen's performance will not fall off a cliff. Hey, maybe Mike Jacobs will not play every day against lefties. And so on.

Anger … I have never really felt much anger about the Royals. I was angry about some of the preposterously cheap moves the Royals have made, and I was angry about the way the organization mistreated Allard Baird at the end, but all that's something else. I suppose the Yuniesky Betancourt trade probably triggered something like frustration, but only because of the Royals' continued insistence that it was a good move. It seems pretty clear that Betancourt, because of his striking inability to hit or get on base or field or run or hustle, is not an especially good baseball player, but the Royals continue to say that, no, Betancourt is a very good baseball player, with a chance still to be great. And that makes me worry that maybe I'm the crazy one.

Bargaining … well, if you want the best for the Royals, you must bargain with yourself. Brian Anderson and Josh Fields were prospects at one point, right? A healthy Alex Gordon could be a good player. Luke Hochevar did have a few exciting performances last year, didn't he? Well, didn't he? The lower levels of the minors do seem bursting with pitching prospects*. Maybe if the Royals can just endure a couple of bad years, make a couple of moves …

*Though I do think of the Bill James line: EVERY TEAM HAS PROSPECTS. And not only that … every team, every year has exactly 10 prospects in the magazine pages of Baseball America.

Depression … the Jason Kendall signing brought on depression.

And finally, acceptance. Royals GM Dayton Moore claimed in the pages of Baseball America to be interested in "acquiring young major-leaguers who are years away from free agency," and then he and the fellas went out and signed Kendall and Scott Podsednik. This is like last year when Dayton and the fellas claimed to be interested in improving the team's on-base percentage and then scoured the list of available talent and meticulously acquired those who could not get on base. "