Who Is Dayton Moore?

[editor's note:For more on Dayton Moore and the Royals, see today's entry on the hiring/firing.]

Nice 15-4 whipping at the hands of the Yankees today. Nevertheless, the losing came easy, as the Royals were riding a 1-game winning streak. For my money, the players were nervous, knowing that Buddisimo was sitting on win #399 and all. The day's real news revolved around the latest front office rumor.

The report out of ESPN and the KC Star is that the Royals' GM job is there for Dayton Moore, an organizational soldier with the Braves, if he wants it. As Bob Dutton writes, "Sources say Moore is clearly the Royals' top preference".

So why the hell does Allard Baird still have a job?

As always, figuring out these Royals is a little hard to understand. Whether or not the man deserves to be fired, the situation borders on farcical, becoming an insult to everyone involved. Just fire him already, appoint an interim guy and move on.

Whats frightening, is that this is what its come to, some guy named Dayton Moore -- who's apparently playing hardball with Glass -- or the prospect of Randy Smith, who buried Detroit baseball from 1996-2002.

Shouldn't the Royals be trying to distance themselves from the 2003 Tigers?

So who is Dayton Moore?

Well, as Dutton puts it,

"Moore, 39, is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the Braves' scouting and player development in his role as the assistant general manager for baseball operations... Moore is a native of Wichita who joined the Braves in 1994 as a scout. He later served as an assistant director of scouting, assistant director of player development and director of international scouting before his promotion in 2002 to director of player personnel development.

Moore moved to his current post in August 2005."

Here's the Atlanta Press Release celebrating his 2005 promotion as well as a somewhat amusing story announcing his decision not to pursue the Boston GM job.

I'm sure he's featured prominently in Bill Shanks anti-Moneyball diatribe Scout's Honor, but I can't find an online index to verify that. (And by the way, it was never about "scouts versus stats" but who's listening at this point anyway.) Here's his executive bio page at Baseball America, as well as some comments on an interview he did with a Braves blog that no longer exists. One reader considers him "blando".

Sounds like just our type.

Do you think I'm bland?