bowes a beast, but watching the royals limp around isnt.
i broke up with baseball today. already. dammit.

I don’t know what the answer is

the system was rated in the mid to low 20s during the final years of the baird era

but my first move would be to give myself a golden parachute, then form a committee made up of myself, JoPo, Neyer, Rany, and Dr. Thunder to hire a REAL Team President/GM, then fire myself with the parachute.

It would be best for everyone.

To mangle a phrase from Neyer, “I don’t acquire the players, I just make fun of the guy who does.”

You might quit with two years left on your contract.

(jokes)

I still think it’s reasonable to see Gordon as a 4 WAR player (I have “faith” he can be more), which is fine. Even then, it might be tough to keep him around past FA. But, hey, Dayton convinced Zack to stay on a good deal, and we should give him credit for that. Given BUtler’s defensive limitations, I see his upside as more like 3 — a good hitter, to be sure, but at 1B, well, 1Bs aren’t that valuable in general.

That won’t be enough — and this is why, some protestations to the contrary, being smart with FA and “minor” trades is important. Of the Tampa “core” — yes, Longoria was/is great, so is Upton. But Carlos Pena, Iwamura, Zobrist, Aybar, Gross, Navarro, Bartlett… these guys were F.A.T. or low-cost pickups or throw-ins. Obviously, they couldn’t have done it if Longoria, Upton and the pitchers hadn’t been great. But having those guys on the cheap was essential, too. And that has been, in my opinion, Dayton Moore’s biggest blind spot.

Again — Dayton Moore traded for Mike Jacobs and gave him $3M. Jack Z. got Branyan for $1.5M. Dayton traded for the corpse of Ryan Freel. Jack Z. got Ryan Langerhans, a league average player, for Mike Morse (an infield Shane Costa, at best).

That’s the thing.

I’d really like to see KC with a more contemporary approach like they have in TB — I don’t mean the stats thing (although that’s part of it), but the not having a GM title — Friedman is the head, but its more of a “team” thing. He’s the leader, but there are more old-school guys like Hunsicker (sp?) as well as new-school guys like Friedman.

I really think that the Team President just needs to set the overall direction. We make fun of him (on my part, it’s affectionate) a lot, but I half-seriously think JoPo would be a good figurehead president. He knows enough people around the game that he could get a good committee together to put together a good staff. And who could say “no” to Poz. Tango LOVES him. Bill James would give great recommendations on people to hire.

And, of course, Art Stewart would be scout-for-life.

the Royals could do a lot worse

what sucks is that Dayton Moore would be a great part of a team as described above, you know? I don’t think he good in terms of his overall vision of putting together a team, but, yeah, as a Director of Player Development, he’s obviously got some know-how. As I’ve said before, I think a big part of his problem is that he looks at 25-35 year old established major leaguers the same way he looks at 16-20 year old prospects, which is a problem…

the farm system is great down there, but what pushed them over the top was their ability to get other valuable players on the cheap, as noted above.

Royals fans complained about him incessantly and predicted he’d hit the wall every year, and he never did. He provided good hitting and defense for his position, giving the Royals 7 WAR over his three years. That’s $28M worth of production for $12.5M. Was that worth a bit more than a bologna sandwich?