Because he goes by Gio. His teammates call him Gio, his twitter handle is Gio, his family restaurant is Gio’s, and the name Gia roughly translates to Jane in Italian.

I like what we got for Zack, it was perfect trade for us at the time, filled two high-skill positions with young, controllable major-league ready talent, plus Odorizzi, perhaps the most important part of the deal. In future we should never need to trade for major-league ready players, should already have the replacement for the veteran ready to come in, so will be looking to replace someone next year or two or three years in future.

This is all kind of depressing, actually, but the alternative is to have the starting nine plus four pitchers all ready to make at least $10 million each in the same year and we’ll never have that much payroll available without NFL-type revenue sharing. We could survive with a $12 million, a couple of $10 mil, an $8, a couple of $7, a $6, a $5 million, and the rest in small change with the $12 million in line to be traded. That totals $65 million plus the everybody else, which is getting out to the edge of what our market can sustain. We can hope that David Glass is banking the payroll savings from last season and next, maybe allow an extra year of Hoz and Moose and Duffy, but I see no way to get to even a $90 million payroll without a major TV deal based on the Royals being an America’s team with a big regional following or without ticket price hikes so great as to make a Royals game a similar financial burden as a Chiefs’ game for most fans. On 2 million attendance, it would take a $10/ticket hike to generate another $20 million of revenue, about what Hoz’ last year of arbitration might cost us if he’s as good as we expect.

The one problem with the process that I don’t see a good solution to is winning those trades. When you trade a star player and get multiple guys in return – they probably aren’t high-ceiling prospects, or won’t arrive in the bigs for a year or two. As an example, would you prefer what we got for Greinke or a straight one-for-one for a stud 2B like Dustin Ackley, or with an add-in pitcher. My point is the process needs to win the trades to work.

This year we’ll be over .500.

“Just keep turning players over, trade Mous, Hoz, and Gordon at the end of their deals and start over?”

Yep, only way to keep the Process self-sustaining. The trick is to try to get the turnover spaced out enough that it is only one or two veterans per year flipped.

“Who on the roster now knows how to win?”

Pretty much all the starters, after mowing through the minors racking up championships. Of the young studs, better question is whether any of knows how to lose. Duffy and Monty both faced their first losing campaigns last year, hope they learn from it.

“Who on the staff does Hochevar ask advise from?”

Chen and the coaching staff, as Hoch is a fairly old guy. He knows what he has to do, which is locate and command. Best advice for any player is simply “Execute”.

“What’s the point if the overall aspiration is to hopefully not lose 100 games but make it pretty damn tough to win 80 year in and year out.”

Winning 80 won’t be all that tough, 85-90 isn’t unreasonable, the tough part will be getting to 95 or 100 wins without the payroll exploding to the point where we do like the Marlins and dump everybody, then start another five year rebuilding plan.

“If at the trade deadline KC are selling instead of buying, then this just isn’t working.”

Sanchez will be for sale, maybe Frenchy if Myers is crushing Omaha, Soria’s another possibility. Paulino’s even possible, depending on if some of the forgotten lefties light up AAA. Not wise to fall in love with any of the Royals, none will retire here, few will play more than seven years before getting traded for a haul of prospects for the next reload. This won’t be easy, but will be the only way to get us to being and staying an upper-tier team for a decade or more. Basically the Tampa Bay Way.

Who on the roster now knows how to win? Who on the staff does Hochevar ask advise from? Chen? Paulino..a bunch of guys that have never been there before. Sanchez had success as a 3rd starter 1 year but needs to find himself again. What’s the point if the overall aspiration is to hopefully not lose 100 games but make it pretty damn tough to win 80 year in and year out. This team is progressing and the fruits of GMDM’s labors are close to paying off but they won’t if he hopes everyone pans out. If at the trade deadline KC are selling instead of buying, then this just isn’t working.

I’m thinking that the wave of ’11 was a little bit of an accident, Kila underwhelming, which brought Hoz up early, Aviles failing, which gave us Gio in ’11 instead of ’12, Matt Treanor getting hurt, which opened the door for Savior Perez. But offsetting that was Cain being held back another year by the play of Frenchy, Melky, and Alex. I think GMDM probably expected a second pitcher to break through last year, which is why he had Francis and Chen on one-year contracts. Pitching is likely to get crowded in the minors this year.

Been thinking a little on the flow of talent and payroll and that will be interesting and challenging. Given payroll limitations, GMDM will need to try to get contracts and prospects spaced so that he can trade one or two stars per year to keep payroll under control while maintaining competitiveness. Because of that, I assume Billy and Soria are both traded with a year left on contract, then a year or two later Gordon traded, then a couple of years after that, Moose and Hoz, and so on. Extremely challenging task under current revenue system, but no way out short of an NFL type socialist revenue sharing and it won’t work if we start trading prospects who aren’t excess.

If Wil puts up a Hosmer in AAA, what do the Royals do – Frenchy has RF for two years.