Teams to Worry About in 2010, According to Dayton Moore
by Freneau on Aug 26, 2009 9:33 PM EDT
in Kansas City Royals News
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PrintMoore points to the club’s 18-11 start, prior to the onset of injuries to several key players, as validation of the organization’s approach.
“I go back to the same thing all of the time,” he said. “If our processes were so poor, how were we able to put together a pretty good team in the off-season? We went through the process, and most people around baseball felt we were vastly improved.
- Bob Dutton in the KC Star, July 22, 2009
As a baseball general manager, you don't just constantly monitor your own team, you also have to follow the rest of the Major Leagues. You have to survey the entire competitive landscape. Thanks to our status as one of the thirty most popular Royals blogs on the internet, RR was able to speak with Dayton Moore about the teams to watch in 2010.
We begin in the American League.
Indians (55-69): The Tribe is 12-9 since July 31 and 18-12 since July 21. You win with continuity in this business and Eric Wedge continues to prove that. I consider Mark Shapiro one of the best bullpen architects in the game. All I worry about is how they'll replace Ben Francisco's glove in 2010.
Baltimore (51-74): I love the way they came out of the gate, really fighting. At 6-2, they weren't backing down from anyone. ANYONE. Then they go 14-12 in an all-important stretch from May 4-June 1. There's an old baseball saw about how you do from Cinco de Mayo through the end of May. It's tells you quite a bit. Now they just have to handle losing Huff, a classic RBI man.
Oakland (55-69): People assume I'm not a fan of Billy Beane, but he's got the pieces in place. They went 16-13 from May 24-June 22, and no one wants to talk about it.
Blue Jays (57-66): I'm really amazed by what Cito Gaston has done. They started the season 20-10, and they haven't missed a beat. Once they straighten out their underperformers, they'll be fine.They really killed it in this year's draft as well. They'll be around for awhile. I feel bad for JP, as he got stuck with some bad contracts, but sometimes that happens to even the best GMs, they wake up with six bad contracts on their roster. They'll be fine.
Assuming the Royals are World Series contenders next season, who will Trey Hillman be matching wits with in the 2010 Fall Classic?
Reds (52-71): After losing their first two games, the Reds reeled off a 20-12 run from April 9-May 13. They've got guys on that team that love the game, which hasn't always been the case and their first 32 games has told me that their young pitching can be counted on long term. The Machine reborn!
Nationals (44-81): I have questions about taking a low upside college player first overall, but the Nationals will be very dangerous next season.They went 17-9 from June 24-August 16, so it amazes me that people would not be excited about them next year. Their new park could be a scary place to play in October. Nats Town could be a house of horrors. Very scary.
Padres (52-74): You've got to look a little closer at the Padres. I love Heath Bell at the end of games and Brian Giles has really helped them off the field. They've got a real ass-kicking attitude on that team. That's a man's team. Look, they started 9-3, then went 12-3 from May 15-May 31, then 11-4 from July 28-August 12. Why would you discount that? That's two months of great baseball.
Pirates (51-71): I thought they're decision to rebuild was cowardly, as to my eyes they had a really great core. You win with experienced guys who've done it before, and I loved their Sanchez-Wilson core through 2015. Still, they're in position to turn it around quicker than anyone thinks. Did their 11-7 string from April 6-18th mean nothing? What about when they went from 14-10 from May 10-June 6? Sure, they won't be as good as us, but this is a feisty team. Adam LaRouche's fingerprints are all over this bunch.
Diamondbacks (55-70): These guys can play. 16-15 from May 16-June 18, then an absolutely torrid 19-10 streak from July 3-August 6. Teams around them are getting weaker, and the 'Backs are getting stronger. Justin Upton is a joy to watch at the plate. He's a professor up there, though he needs to work on his defense. His lateral movement needs work. If they can find a way to get Connor Jackson more at bats, they'll walk away with the AL West.
Thank you to Dayton for his time. Who do you fear the most in 2010?
(Disclaimer: no, although I shouldn't have to say this, I did not really speak to Dayton Moore and these quotes are not actual statements by him, they may be what he believes however.)
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The Kansas City Royals
That 18-11 stretch to start the year was no fluke. The larger sample size is obviously the fluke since it doesn’t fit with expectations. Speaking of that, Mark “2006” Teahen will have a huge year next year. Is Brady Anderson still around? Maybe he can come back and hit 50 homers again.
and if you believe that ...
I have some land 250 miles west of California with a great ocean view for sale.
Your scoffing is absurd
When winning is the norm,
Bar injuries incurred
And failure to perform.
The measurement is just
That disregards all stains.
Accept the process: trust
That truth is what remains.
by 2X2L on Aug 25, 2009 4:12 PM EDT up reply actions 5 recs
Brilliant!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When super delayed gratification meets with underachieving veteran they laugh at the Royals, just a hypothesis though
by MarioVanPeebles Republic of China on Aug 25, 2009 4:53 PM EDT up reply actions
Excuses
the difference between Allard Baird and Dayton Moore’s failures is that Baird kept his mouth shut when failures fell on his shoulders. Moore, on the other hand, makes excuses for his.
Admitting failure is the most difficult part of being a leader, but if Moore does not learn from his failures, much less acknowledge them, he is doomed to continue to fail as GM of the Royals. I understand that you can’t be flip-flopping your plan all of the time, and in another world perhaps Moore’s rigid ‘stick to the process’ way of thinking would have been successful. But that’s not reality on the ground. The process of 2009 has been an unqualified failure. Wake up and smell the stench of what you’ve created this year, Mr. Moore. At least admit that in 2009, all ‘the process’ has given you and your fan base is, unreservedly and undeniably, the most expensive last place team in franchise history and the most disappointing failure of a MLB franchise in 2009. Everyone knew the Nationals, Pirates, and Padres would be bad, but they’ve gone about their awfulness by rebuilding. In KC we had a chance to be good but ended up being awful, so naturally we go about by trading legitimate prospects for Yuniesky Betancourt, releasing high-priced releivers like Ron Mahay in August instead of flipping them for prospects in July, and continuing to trot out Mike Jacobs instad of giving Kila Ka’aihue a shot at the MLB level. Naturally, it’s all part of the process.
No one is going to save Dayton Moore but himself. I’m reminded of three lessons Robert McNamara shared about leadership decisions in ‘The Fog of War’:
1. Get the data
2. Belief and seeing are often both wrong
3. Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning
Mr. Moore would do well to take heed. But this seems to be the furthest thing from his mind. Or, trust the process, make single-minded decisions without self-reflection on the past, and maliciously stamp out criticism. That’s what we do in the crumbling towers of Kauffman. And that is why we fail.
Waiting for April.
by DC Royal on Aug 25, 2009 3:02 PM EDT reply actions 2 recs
yea
not to belabor the point, but we’ve really seen a bunker mentality this year… from Trust the Process to the Betancourt trade
rather than admit a mistake in going for it in 2009, we’re geared up for another shot in 2010
we’ll end up completely wasting 3 years, at minimum, at the big league level (2008-10) on a single bad idea
No he is condascending
He’s a piece of shit in my mind. You don’t blame everyone else but yourself. You don’t man up, because that’s a sexist term, you become humble AND ADMIT YOU FUCKED UP ON EVERY SINGLE PLAYER ACQUSITION
Its pathetic he brings up the Willie BLoomquist signing, “how did that one turn out”
I didn’t realize Coco and Jacobs were so horrible either, so i was open to seeing the result of the trades. it just so happens the results of the trades were unbelievably horrible. Coco was 24th out of 30 CF’s in OPS. Mike Jacobs is a AAA player.
I want the Royals to lose so we get the first pick and Moore gets fired. I just read an article on ESPN in which Glass talks about giving Moore an extension
by GobbleforCyoung on Aug 25, 2009 3:27 PM EDT up reply actions
The Walmart family is probably the last people to admit
that they screwed up the replacement of Baird and Buddo. So, yes, I would expect an extension for Dancing Dayton just to save face.
To be fair
He didn’t fuck up every acquisition.
Cruz was a good move. It didn’t work out because he decided to suck, but let’s be brutally honest here: when both the statheads and traditionalists agree a guy’s a good pickup and then he stinks the joint up, you can’t blame the GM.
Crisp wasn’t a bad move, really. And although his BA blew more chunks than a frat house during rush week, he was actually doing his job at the plate until his arms fell off. He was still on pace for 96 BB when he went down, so I actually have to chalk that up as a positive.
Those are the only two acquisitions that are defensible, though. Well, you could make a case for Blümqvist too, but that requires one to suspend one’s disbelief and assume his overusage has been the sole result of Hillmanagement, rather than Trey following the Process™.
This space for rent.
crisp's plate discipline was good...
but it was a small sample size….and waaaaaaaaaaaay out of the norm for his career. The only thing that was normal with crisp this year was him getting hurt….
crisp for $8 million is meh…crisp for $8 million + 5 years of ramirez is bad
Fire Everyone
by billybeingbilly on Aug 26, 2009 1:21 AM EDT up reply actions
But that's just it
It was SO out of norm that it had to signal at least some level of improvement in the skill.
It wasn’t like the Royals starting 18-11 and being this bad; it was like the Royals starting 25-4. There’s no way this team could have started 25-4. It would have been too much of an anomaly, less likely on a statistical basis than you having a wild weekend with Angelina Jolie, Jenna Fischer, and Miss Universe.
This space for rent.
davies put together 10 good starts over two seasons...
and he still sucks…that was just as much out of form as cocos newfound plate discipline
Fire Everyone
by billybeingbilly on Aug 26, 2009 7:13 AM EDT up reply actions
well, maybe a bit of an improvement
but not that much… there are bigger deviations over larger sample sizes. At about 220 PAs, we’d average his overall offensive talent wit another 220 PAs of league average to estimate his true talent on the season (then combine that with a weighted average). Crisp wasn’t quite at 220 when he got hurt.
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
by Matt Klaassen on Aug 26, 2009 10:18 AM EDT up reply actions
I dispute the validity of simply assuming small sample size
when a hitherto unforeseen ability presents itself.
Crisp was almost 60% of the way to his career high (50) in walks, and the season was barely a quarter of the way through. It’s one thing if you’re 60% of the way to your career high in home runs a quarter of the way through the season, and your name is Willie Bloomquist. The question of small and large sample size applies to the quantity of a counting stat just as much as it does to rates.
You know, sort of like the thing where a pitcher striking out 15 guys in a game is significant, even though it’s “just one game”?
This space for rent.
INteresting claims
I had just read about stuff like this in some recent articles by Colin Wyers at THT, so I decided to use the same techniques with Crisp.
I took the last 4 years of weighted PA to establish the uncertainty of his most generous OBP projections (both had him projected at .334). Then I added in his 215 PAs of .336 OBP and that uncertainty. Updated projection: 334 OBP. Hmm…
But you were talking about walk rate, of course. SO I did a similar thing with his walk rate. Marcel had the most generous projection at 8.6%. His walk rate in 215 PA this season was 13.9%. Obviously, this has a high degree of uncertainty. When you combine that with the previous projection, you get a new walk rate “skill” of about 9.6%. So that is a bit of an improvement, but not nearly as much as you’d think. And while that is more component-specific and thus stable than the OBP projection, it’s not as if the BABIP portion of his updated OBP projection has no merit. Indeed, while both the 2009 BABIP and 2009 BB rate went opposite wild directions, both reflect what we’d expect as a player gets older — decreasing BABIP, increasing BBrate.
In other words, statistically speaking, Crisp likely wasn’t much a much better hitter overall than we would have expected him to be at the beginning of the season. INdeed, as I predicted long ago, during Crisp’s hot streak and DDJ’s cold streak, DDJ’s wOBA has now surpassed Crisp’s.
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
by Matt Klaassen on Aug 29, 2009 2:54 PM EDT up reply actions
One should be living by number 3 through out their lives.
I still don’t understand the process of not bringing up rookies. Am I to understand that we have no one in the minors that could out play some of these overpriced prima donna’s. The Cards seem to be masters at regrouping every year. They have used 17 rookies this season and yet they are 8 games in front of the division. Can their minor league system be 17-0 better than ours? Or is it their process that is that much more superior than ours. I think it is the later.
You don't get it at all.
By season’s end, GMDM will have only paid the paltry sum of $700K per loss. How how much do you think the YANKEES have to pay per loss, huh?
This space for rent.
It probably deserves to be mentioned that McNamara did not learn those leadership lessons (or, at least not put them into practice) until he wasted tens of thousands more lives in an effort he later awknowleged that he recognized as very unlikely to succeed. McNamara admitted he stuck to his “process” for years after he knew it was broken due to domestic political considerations and personal character shortcomings.
If Moore really patterns his response on McNamara’s the Royals can expect another few seasons of failure, Moore’s dismissal around 2011, and finally, sometime around 2040, publication of a heartfelt confession of his shortcomings as GM. Maybe he will even cry during his interviews when the topic of Jose Guillen and Farnsworth come up. Some of the younger people will feel sorry for him when they see how sorry he is “in retrospect.” Those who had to sit through the 2009, 2010, 2011 seasons probably will be less easily moved to pity.
www.rockchalktalk.com for pretty good KU baseball coverage
Also part of the pattern
everyone will still manage to forget that the beloved Dan/David was the “leadership” behind everything, except the Glass were just so darn good-looking, died young, and were thus beloved by a generation so drunk on self-congratulation that they can’t see straight.
Yeah, that sounds like the Glasses.
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
by Matt Klaassen on Aug 26, 2009 10:19 AM EDT up reply actions
World Series next year????
You have been hitting the plum wine again haven’t you, RR? Sorry to say this but every Royals team has a good stretch and that is what the 18-11 was. Even the 2006 team had a winning streak. Now that was a team with suckitude.
Dancing Dayton’s comments about injuries seems to me to be more of his snakeoil mentality. Tell them anything and most of them will believe it. You can’t blame the entire season on injuries. So, injuries made us have to trade for Bloomquist and or pickup Ponson and Chen. Injuries are the reason we haven’t had one single rookie debut this season. Injuries are the reason Hillfart’s managerial skills rival that of Tball coaches. Injuries… seems like the easy way out to me.
Sorry DD I don’t buy your snakeoil executive style. I take back my comment that we could not doing any worse than Baird and Buddo. We may just have.
I think an old fashion sounds better than a dessert wine.
They always tasted like cough syrup to me. But, then I drink scotch.
can never go wrong
with a nice refreshing Sapphire and Tonic.
Hopes fade once again from blue to red. Go New Chiefs!!
Plum wine does not come with pleasant connotations in the 20th century.
Plum wine is the preferred rock-gut drink in Serbia. Plum wine is associated with planned violence – cheap motivation passed around to guys preparing to get their hands dirty while “correcting historical injustices.”
www.rockchalktalk.com for pretty good KU baseball coverage
Brilliant
Although Oakland should have been:
Oakland management does not make excuses, they bear responsibility. But they have suffered a ton of injuries, and no one could have expected Matt Holliday to be so affected by a transition to the AL. And the young guys underperformed, particularly the pitching. But they’re not ones to make excuses.
Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com
I just reread Dayton's Dutton quote....
As a general manager one should know that putting a “good” team together on paper is vastly different than winning “real” games. Yes, we did have a good team on paper before the season started. We had a good spring training and April and May. Then some injuries happened, players underperformed, and the season went down the tubes. The time to adapt and reorganize was in June. What we did was to stick to the process and where did it get us into yet another 100 plus game losing season.
we had at best an average team at all of those times....
with an above average 30 day stretch
Fire Everyone
by billybeingbilly on Aug 25, 2009 5:05 PM EDT up reply actions
Brilliant
Phase 1: Assemble expensive, below average players
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: CHAMPIONSHIP!
-RoyalsRetro
by ratherfantastic on Aug 25, 2009 3:58 PM EDT reply actions
Classic! Conor Jackson.....
I really do think that someone like Moore would be so oblivious to other teams’ situations that he would
1) incorrectly spell Jackson’s name
2) truly believe that Jackson needs more AB’s this year, when in reality he’s been out pretty much all season with Valley Fever….too bad actually, since he was a pretty good player last year for AZ.
by Fernando Vina School of Linguistics on Aug 25, 2009 5:10 PM EDT reply actions
The Negativity Here
is REALLY grating.
I’ll stand up as a Moore apologist on a few counts:
There is a fifteen year culture of losing with this franchise. Moore’s primary player acquisitions [Crisp, Jacobs] were guys who might not have been the statistically sexiest players going but had good reputations as clubhouse guys and had played for winners. He was trying to bring some leadership in which was obviously sorely lacking last year.
As a corollary of the point above once this team started to go into the tank, it couldn’t find a way to dig itself out of the hole- part of the culture referred to above. It’s telling that when Crisp’s performance had peaked, the Royals were 18-15 and tied for first with Detroit, having started the annual May slide. If I was saying “here we go again” you know they were thinking it.
As for the Cortes trade- don’t you think that maybe PART of the desire to move him was because he had two alcohol-related incidents? Maybe he was talented but undisciplined so Moore figured that he’d never reach his potential? You might accuse me of making suppositions, but there’s entirely too much reliance on statistical analysis sometimes. This isn’t PlayStation baseball- the front office and the players are people and all too often if we can’t measure something we ignore it, so the suppositions go both ways.
Moore is surprised that the team isn’t playing as well as expected. So is everyone on this board. So that’s hardly a legitimate complaint. And if he wasn’t surprised, do you think he’d come out and say “Well, we weren’t really trying to put a competitive product on the field, so I’m not stunned at the way the season has turned out”?
At least we’ve seen some signs that the team is getting it- Butler has started at 1B and St. Willie would never have gotten the ABs that Gloady did except for the injuries. Pena was finally DFAd and Trey showed the ability to extend Soria out to two innings despite some justified, yet oddly rationalized fears.
This franchise is not going to be rebuilt overnight. As a rule, it’s much easier to destroy than to build. The process that everyone is so fond of mocking isn’t happening at the big league level except as an attempt to build a new culture. I truly believe that part of the process was damaged by injuries for two reasons: it allowed the attitude to slide back into a “woe is us” mode and it has left Alex Gordon’s career in limbo.
Right now, Moore’s fortunes are tied to his first two drafts. He might have served himself better by taking players that were closer to major league but he didn’t so we are still waiting- at least two more years until we know for sure what we really have. If he’s got the scouting eye that we’ve been led to believe then there’s a chance.
Finally, if Moore fails-or worse, is canned before we have a chance to see if he can succeed- do you really think that Glass is going to hire the next Theo Epstein?
. . . a weary nation turns to Gil Meche
As for the Cortes trade
The problem is not that he traded Cortes. It’s that he traded him for the worst everyday player in MLB.
by BrRoyal on Aug 26, 2009 9:40 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
I’d have to say that Crisp and Jacobs were not the extent of Moore’s primary acquistions. He also has to accept responsiblity for Jose Guillen, Ron Mahay, Yuniesky Betancourt, Kyle Farnsworth, Horacio Ramirez, Sidney Ponson, …
No exageration, Moore has not made a single (Not one. None) free agent signing in the last year that can be considered a clear sucsess. The best he has done is picking up guys like Bloomquist and Chen who seem to be a bit above replacement level.
www.rockchalktalk.com for pretty good KU baseball coverage
So, it's unfair of everyone on here who said in the offseason that Moore's acquisitions were terrible
to point out that we were, in fact, right?
I’ll agree with you on one point, as Dayton Moore has proven it over and over again this season:
As a rule, it’s much easier to destroy than to build.
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
by Matt Klaassen on Aug 26, 2009 10:22 AM EDT up reply actions
Whatever.
No matter how you dress it up, Dayton Moore, GM of the Kansas City Royals, has had a horrible year in which each of his major acquisitions has brought less value to the team, in many cases a lot less, than he expected. That’s not negativity; that’s a fair assessment.
To make that look good, I’m sure you have to appeal to off-the-field considerations such as leadership and discipline, because there surely aren’t any on-the-field considerations handy for the purpose, whether you characterize them via statistics, observation, hyperbole, or rumor.
What I find grating is when folks make stuff up because they can’t make their point using actual facts. Seriously, Jacobs a leadership candidate who had played for a winner?
by 2X2L on Aug 26, 2009 10:27 AM EDT up reply actions 3 recs
rec'd for this.
Seriously, Jacobs a leadership candidate who had played for a winner?
He can get 4, NOT 5.
This franchise is not going to be rebuilt overnight.
Yea, and Moore stopped rebuilding in 2007. He’s been trying to win now every since.
by Freneau on Aug 26, 2009 3:09 PM EDT up reply actions 3 recs
Were 18-11
That’s playoff pace until Injuries cruelly destroyed our season
by kcbottom9th on Aug 27, 2009 12:39 AM EDT up reply actions
Moore's take on the competition..
is way off in the case of Cleveland. Replacing Ben Francisco’s ’ glove’ is the biggest question facing the Indians for 2010??
That’s not even serious.
The royals are 48-0 in games they won this year
We have nothing to worry about, our GM recognizes this team is only a healthy Crisp Guillen and Cruz away from a division title
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