Everything must go !!!

And I remember that he’s the scout who found Kila. JJ was promoted to Asst. GM earlier this season, probably in anticipation of this move. Clearly the pitching side of the scouting has been working and the hitting side hasn’t. So hopefully this will improve that.

No surprise. He just wanted his guy in there…

…an astounding failure. How can I say this? Not enough success from non-first-round picks. And he drafted Colt Griffin. …Sigh. And Stodolka—-as a pitcher.

Ladnier’s failure might simply be the product of a lousy developmental system. But as the leader, he has to take the fall. – TL

…about the Hochevar pick/signing, too (at #1 overall), which I still don’t quite get (though I’m sure he will improve). Whose call was it? Hochevar was chosen just after Moore was hired, but supposedly Moore had no say in the pick due to his remaining obligations to the Braves and their draft. I’ve always found it hard to believe that Moore didn’t at least give his approval through some channels… I would like to know who pushed for Hochevar at # 1 and to what degree Moore (or Ladnier) influenced the pick.

Also, I wonder…did the Hosmer situation play into this firing whatsoever, and if so, to what degree? I doubt it did, but you know Moore can’t be happy that this kid isn’t playing right now…just throwing it out there as one potential factor among many others in the firing.

Explosion that is about to happen this summer.

but I couldn’t tell you why

I’m surprised Ladnier made it through the last two drafts—I figured he was a goner from the start.

It’s almost unfair to post-mortem him, as he had the constraints of the Baird-era Glasses and their unreasonable budgetary demands to deal with. But the Royals cupboard has been bare for ages, and if the scouting director isn’t somewhat responsible, then who else is?

The Royals have not drafted well in a long while. At this point the 2005-2007 drafts all look pretty poor to me in particular (I know, not everyone agrees with me yet.) The 2001 and 2002 drafts were piss poor. 2003 and 2004, ehhh. Not all this can be blamed on tight finances. Hochevar and Moustakas both appear to have been significantly over-valued by my perspective. This is also true to a lesser degree regarding Gordon. Looks to me like Ladnier was not doing a bang-up job evaluating draft choices.

is that there are clubs out there that survive and even thrive with cheap ownerhsip (Minnesota, Oakland, and Florida) that the small-market argument only holds so much weight.

The bigger problem is that, given certain constraints, the Baird/Ladnier/Jackson regime was really unable to identify and develop enough talent to make the team competitive. I’ll be honest, I had a huge problem with Baird because I thought he was totally full of shit. He loved to throw out his little pet sayings, but that just masked the fact that he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing. How else to explain that he worked nearly 24 hours a day but to try and compensate for his lack of ability. I would submit that he and Gunther Cunningham have/had a lot in common.

A mentor of mine has said, “don’t confuse activity with progress”. I think that is a lesson that Baird never learned.

A cheap owner and shrewd GM, the team can thrive. A bad GM and an owner willing to open the pocketbook to cover his mistakes, the team can survive.

A cheap, meddling owner and a terrible GM, well you get the current state of affairs for the KC Royals.

Hochevar—far from inspirational first season, but remember, the “can’t miss” best prospect of the draft was Andrew Miller. This season? 5-9 with a 5.63 ERA in the National League. Career so far? 10-15 with a 5.66 ERA in parts of 3 seasons. To say now that Lincecum was the guy is simply 20/20 hindsight: everyone was saying before the draft that there’s no way his body holds up for a career (and we won’t know how that works out for at least a couple more seasons).

Moustakas—granted, Wieters had a great season, Moose’s season after the really slow first month was more than solid. Winds up being the offensive leader of what could be the first Royals affiliate in ages to be champs of their league and led the pitcher-friendly Midwest League in HR.

Again, I think this was simply a system change and a preference for Piccolo’s supervision as opposed to punishing Ladnier for any specific pick.