At any rate, it's time to stop the same old rhetoric -- and get creative. Before it's too late.

Miscellaneous Rumblings
If you're not sleeping nights, worrying about who will be the new manager of the Royals, you won't have to wait long. GM Allard Baird expects to have his new manager on board by at least the end of next week.

	“	I'm looking for a high-energy guy. And I'm looking for a guy who has an understanding of pitching -- not a pitching coach, but somebody who understands how to handle pitching ”
		— Allard Baird, Royals GM, on his search for a new manager

Baird says he started with 24 names, then cut them to five Sunday night. The only two he has confirmed are current interim manager John Mizerock and Royals Triple-A manager, Bucky Dent. But Astros coach Tony Pena admits he interviewed for the job Wednesday. And there are rumblings that Buck Showalter and Lynn Jones, a former Royals player currently managing in the Atlanta system, could be the final two names.

All five have managing experience, at least in the minor leagues. And that, Baird says, is a must.

"I'm looking for a high-energy guy," Baird told Rumblings and Grumblings. "And I'm looking for a guy who has an understanding of pitching -- not a pitching coach, but somebody who understands how to handle pitching.

"I want a communicator -- a guy who can motivate and relate. And I want someone who understands the concept of an organizational philosophy so we can implement it on the field. But I'm not only talking about during the season. I'm talking about during the offseason, somebody who can go to the Fall League, go to Latin America and see some of our guys in winter ball, somebody who can communicate our philosophy at all times.

"I want credibility. When the guy we hire walks into a room, I want people to think of him as a winner -- a guy who has won, who knows how to win.

"And I want honesty. I want a guy who will speak his mind. And if he has a disagreement with the general manager, we can disagree until 4 a.m. or whatever. But when we come out of the room, we come out looking at this from the standpoint that it's the organization that matters above all, that the organization is bigger than the manager and bigger than the general manager."

Many of those attributes, ironically, were qualities Baird says he saw in the manager he just fired, Tony Muser. And the GM admits he's searching for "a lot of Tony's characteristics" in the manager he hires next. But he also understands his team needed a fresh voice and fresh outlook in the dugout.

He needs to interview all five names on his list before he can get the Royals' next regime started. But his team's current level of play is telling him: The sooner the better.

"You see Barry Bonds traveling with four personal trainers," the friend says. "He does that because it's the price he has to pay to get better at his age. You don't see Junior doing that.

"There's a line inside you that boxers talk about, where you've got nothing left, so you keep going on guts alone. There's a certain fight you need to have in you at times like that. And when a guy has security and all the money he ever needed, sometimes he just says, 'What the hell? What am I doing all this for?'

"I'm not saying Junior's going to quit. He just doesn't have that drive anymore. At least I don't see it."

Of course, it's been tough to tell because it's been so long since Griffey has been healthy. But Griffey has never liked being upstaged, particularly by members of his own team. So if the emergence of Adam Dunn and Austin Kearns -- and that Cincinnati TV poll, regardless of questions about its validity -- can't motivate him when he returns, maybe nothing can anymore.

	Cliff Floyd Outfielder Florida Marlins Profile
	2002 SEASON STATISTICS GM HR RBI R OPS AVG 31 12 28 31 1.187 .330

Check those standings. The Marlins are tied for first place. They can't trade their best player right now, unless they want to have no fans for the next five months.

Indications are that sometime in the next month or so, the Marlins will feel out Floyd's agents, Seth and Sam Levinson, on what it would take to sign him -- and then go from there. But given comments by team president David Samson this week, it seems obvious where they expect they'll be going.

Samson told the Miami Herald's Mike Phillips the other day that the team expects to lose $20 million this year and that trading stars is part of the game. He even brought up the Mariners, who provide a great excuse for any team to justify star-dumping, saying: "Didn't Seattle lose Randy Johnson, Ken Griffey and Alex Rodriguez in three successive years?" he said.

That sends a clear message. It just sends the wrong message. Wouldn't Samson be better off saying: "We want to keep our team intact. But if people in south Florida want us to keep Cliff, we need more of them to come to the park, or it will be very difficult for us to afford it." At least that says: "We're trying."

He and Kevin Millar simply agreed during batting practice one night that because Floyd runs better and throws better than Millar does, it made more sense to flip-flop positions and play Millar in left field, Floyd in right. Or is that too logical?

In fact, a lot of that is Major League Baseball's fault. The Marlins spent the winter with no general manager, no manager, a lame-duck owner and essentially no front office. They were never eliminated as a potential contraction team by the commissioner's office. And they didn't have a schedule until almost February.

When the new ownership group took over -- in mid-February -- exactly 350 season tickets had been sold by a sales crew that either had its hands tied or was heading for the unemployment office. So this team basically had no shot to draw this year, because selling tickets one at a time in this economy is too tough.

"If I were them and I wanted a college player, he's the college pitcher I'd take," says one scouting director. "He's big and strong. He's got the best stuff and the best ability to pitch of that whole group. He's a fast-track guy. To me, he's an ideal fit in their situation."

Then comes Tampa Bay at No. 2. And given the Devil Rays' affection for high school position players, Virginia shortstop B.J. Upton looks like their kind of guy.

The Reds, at No. 3, appear to love Brentwood, Calif., high school right-hander Chris Gruler. The entire Reds hierarchy, including GM Jim Bowden, was spotted eyeballing Gruler last week while the Reds were on a west-coast trip.

The best of the college position players is Clemson third baseman Jeff Baker. But Baker is also a Scott Boras client who is said to have told people recently it will take more money to sign him than Texas gave Texeira last year ($9.5 million). So there's no telling how that talk will affect where he winds up.

	“	The old Pedro threw his fastball 94-97 (mph). This Pedro is mostly 89-92. He can reach back and throw one 94 once in a while. But he can't do it very often, and he doesn't try to do it very often. What that tells me is that he doesn't trust his arm. I would say that by July, one of two things can happen. Either he'll get it together and be the old Pedro, or -- and I hate to think this -- he might be toast. ”
		— A scout on Pedro Martinez

Scouts who have watched his last two starts -- including Tuesday's un-Pedro-like 103-pitches-in-4 1/3-innings outing in Oakland -- have been adamant in their belief that while Martinez can still be awfully good, he's not the old Pedro.

"The old Pedro threw his fastball 94-97 (mph). This Pedro is mostly 89-92," says one scout. "He can reach back and throw one 94 once in a while. But he can't do it very often, and he doesn't try to do it very often. What that tells me is that he doesn't trust his arm. I would say that by July, one of two things can happen. Either he'll get it together and be the old Pedro, or -- and I hate to think this -- he might be toast."

Nobody, especially us, wants this story to turn out that way. But there are definite warning signs here -- particularly the fact that Martinez still has made every start on at least one extra day's rest.

"I don't get the sense that anybody in here is even worried," says Brad Ausmus, "because of the way we started last year."

Wade Miller should be back by the end of the month. Carlos Hernandez is coming on. And their bullpen -- which is last in the league in bullpen ERA (5.66) -- can't and won't be this bad.

"(Octavio) Dotel has struggled early," Ausmus says. "But you've gotta remember he's been a starter his whole life, getting 30 innings a year in spring training. Last year, he got 40 innings during the season as a starter. This year, he got eight innings in spring training, so he came out throwing 91-93 (mph). Now he's starting to get his arm strength back, and he's 94-96.

"Same with Nelson Cruz. He pitched two innings in spring training, and his arm strength wasn't there. And neither of them played winter ball."

The Astros remain a team with a lot of ingredients and a lot of prospects on the horizon. They should get better as the year goes on.

"Austin Kearns might turn out to be a better hitter than Dunn," says one scout. "He's amazing. He doesn't swing at a bad pitch. I thought Dunn had a good idea of the strike zone for a young player, but Kearns has a better idea."

"It sounds good to say we really made a statement with Derek Bell," Littlefield says. "But I think the biggest thing is that we've pitched better and we've fielded better. I understand the concept when people say that. But I'm more of a believer in talent. And I really think that by getting off to a good start and playing well on the road with a young club, we developed some confidence. And we've won the close ones. And that's why the attitude is better.

"Last year, we were just looking for ways to lose. And the attitude wasn't great. But that's what happens on losing clubs. So on the surface, it's an easy answer, that Derek Bell is the reason our attitude is better. But in reality, only winning helps you develop that type of attitude."

	Erickson

	Daal