“Whenever there™s something enormous like this going on in baseball ” some gigantic free agency deal or some monster trade involving the best pitcher in baseball,” complains the KC Star’s Joe Posnaksi, “the Kansas City Royals might as well be playing Major League Soccer.” I beg to differ. I don’t think the Royals could afford Juan Pablo Angel, either (link courtesy Baseball Think Factory).

It™s not that the Royals are not able to trade for Johan Santana. It™s NOT EVEN THE SLIGHTEST POSSIBILITY. It™s like playing in a crooked fantasy baseball league or something.

So you know what? Forget all that. Royals fans deserve to be in the discussion ” hey, Kansas City is a major league town too. So I decided to write my own, œHey, now the Royals are in the Santana chase, story. I got to Royals general manager Dayton Moore and asked, œHey, why can™t you guys go get Johan Santana?

He responded, basically, by suggesting that was not exactly one of the world™s great questions.

But you will notice ¦ that™s not a denial. Am I right or am I right?

So here™s my story:

KANSAS CITY ” Kansas City Royals general manager Dayton Moore on Wednesday did not deny that his team is very close to completing a trade for Minnesota Twins ace Johan Santana.

œThat™s a ridiculous question, he said, when asked why his team just didn™t go out and trade for Santana.

Over the last few weeks, several teams ” in particular the New York Yankees, Mets and Boston Red Sox ” have been rumored to be close to acquiring Santana, so it would be quite a coup for the œsmall-market Royals to beat them to the bunch. As one scout who would prefer to remain anonymous said on Tuesday when first told about this potential Santana-to-the-Royals trade, œAre you drinking and taking medication at the same time?