FanPost

Monday Morning Quarterbacking

Do Royals BigWigs read those websites critical of their decisions?

Would you read sites like this if you were a Royals BigWig? The likely answer is no--you and I would be tempted to chalk up much of the jabber that goes on around here as good old fashioned Monday Morning Quarterbacking.

The technical term for Monday Morning Quarterbacking is "hindsight bias":

Hindsight bias is the inclination to see events that have occurred as more predictable than they in fact were before they took place. Hindsight bias has been demonstrated experimentally in a variety of settings, including politics, games and medicine. In psychological experiments of hindsight bias, subjects also tend to remember their predictions of future events as having been stronger than they actually were, in those cases where those predictions turn out correct.

Is the above quote what descriptive of what we have going on here?

I agree with a recent suggestion that Dayton Moore has been, perhaps, needless vilified. Baseball is merely a game, after all, and I find it difficult to muster vilification toward him, or anybody else, associated with it. Anybody can second-guess the moves of another, or, as Randy Travis might say, hindsight is 20/20, and I'm nearly going blind. I happen to be involved in a profession where hindsight bias is the order of the day, and it is a very real problem, and generally sucks when it occurs.

With that said, however, what is one to make of the following 2008 track record:

-- Acquired Mike Jacobs for Leo Nunez

-- Acquired Coco Crisp for Ramon Ramirez

-- Signed Kyle Farnsworth to a two-year contract

-- Signed Horacio Ramirez to a one-year contract

-- Signed Doug Waechter to a one-year contract

-- Signed Willie Bloomquist to a two-year contract

-- Signed Juan Cruz to a two-year contract

-- Signed Zack Greinke to a four-year contract

-- Acquired Ryan Freel for a PTBNL

-- Acquired Josh Anderson for a PTBNL

-- Acquired Yuniesky Betancourt

* * *

-- Signed Luis Hernandez to a minor league deal

-- Claimed Tug Hulett off waivers

-- Signed Sidney Ponson to a minor league deal

-- Signed Bruce Chen to a minor league deal

As one wit has described the above Rogue's Gallery of moves, "that makes 14 players who made their Royals debut [in 2008]. (Greinke obviously isn’t included since he was already here.) Those 14 have a combined WAR of -0.7."

Is there really anything else that can or needs to be said about the 2008 season?

If we are Monday Morning Quarterbacks, then signing Kyle Farnsworth is an onside kick when leading by two with only one minute left, and adding Bruce Chen is a fake punt on fourth and 28, and with an aging left foot at that.

And the Yuni signing is akin to... well, I'll leave it to others to hash that one out in the comments, but let's just say it was no less than an ill-advised double-flee-flicker of some sort.

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This FanPost was written by a member of the Royals Review community. It does not necessarily reflect the views of the editors and writers of this site.