Trade Sweeney? H, E, double hockey sticks, NO!!!

The KC Star's (and I think the country's) best sports columnist has gone fishing for ideas at the website Baseball Think Factory.

Joe did this before the season started as well, and came away with a few good ideas to while away the spring.

Unfortunately, as the Royals tumble towards another 100-loss season, the attitude of the generally intelligent Primer folks has turned nasty and negative. I'm okay with all of the jokes about my favorite team's inept play on the field and in the front office, but I'm getting oh so sick of the following sentiment:

Trade Mike Sweeney.

The answer is NO! I give these three reasons:

1.) The $11 Million paycheck is not the Royals' problem. It's only such a large percentage of their overall budget because the budget is so small. Sweeney is a good deal for the Royals, lest people forget what kind of contracts Jason Giambi and Mo Vaughn were getting on the open market.

2.) Due to his salary and injury history, the Royals will never get a player as good as Sweeney is in return for trading him. Certainly not worth the value if they have to eat some of his salary.

3.) The last thing you need to do when trying to improve the Royals is to get rid of the best hitter on their team. Everybody who keeps telling the Royals to stop drafting and trading by positional need to realize you don't trade Sweeney just because there are a few prospects below him who might, if everything goes right, hit as well as he does.