Yes, Garcia is definitely the best defender of the bunch. And though he's not young, he's younger than Tauchman and Yas.

Oddly, though, Garcia has no discernible platoon advantage. He's actually been a bit worse in his career against lefties than righties.

The problem is they’d have to pay Garcia like a semi-big name. They may be able to get both Tauchman AND Mike Yastrzemski for the price of Garcia.

And they deserve that benefit. Turning a 100-loss team into a playoff contender should earn them plenty of good will.

But I think seeing how they did it also lets us know that Zumwalt probably won't have much more rope. That is to say, I don't think JJ is a "All my guys are sacred" kinda guy.

And of course the biggest difference is JJ was never the top dog of his domain. So, the decisions didn't ultimately rest with him. Zumwalt is. The results fall on his shoulders. He has an excuse with the staffing thing, and apparently that's enough for the Royals. We'll see if that changes anything.

Excellent point. And Mike wasn't a fan of the Piccolo thing for that reason, as well (and looks wrong on that).

I'm fine with half-assing stuff, but I'm also of the mind that hitting coaches are hired to be fired. Zumwalt hasn't shown any particular brilliance to indicate he's not replaceable.

I don't think that's it. I think moves he made last night show his sense of urgency. I just think he mistakenly thinks they have a better chance to win with Maile behind the plate than Jensen.

I disagree with that.