I was on the tipping point at that time. Not quite over the edge yet. I expected Farnsworth be be more useful than he has been, and was open to the idea that with him and Cruz in the bullpen that Moore might move Soria into the starting rotation. I don’t know why I thought these things at the time. Perhaps I was subconsciously making excuses for Moore in that spring. Maybe I was in denial about how poor he was at building a roster via trades and free agency. I was still looking for order and insight in his actions. Now I just accept his mistakes at face value.

And, like you, it was probably earlier than that, but the re-signing of Zack sort of re-floated him. When he signed Farnsworth (not so much Willie), I kinda lost faith, deciding that any moron would have gotten the Greinke deal done, but it takes a Very Special one to sign the Professor.

And then when he gave the ‘trust the process’ interview, that was just the icing on the cake. That confirmed 100% that the front office is just not on the same page as me.

What is the process? Win now and pray to God? That seems to be it, and while admirable in inrpicple, it is so so so so so so FRUSTRATINGLY SIMPLISTIC. Winning now is all and well if you actually have a chance at winning, but this team just needs to go the 2009 Pirates route and blow this ship up. Dayton just can’t bring himself to do that.

I will admit that I think the worst thing that could have happened for this franchise was that semi-magical, flukish run in September 2008 where the Royals closed the season playing like a contender. I held guarded hope after that, but based on the 2008 offseason GMDM seems to have taken it as a sign that this team is ready to compete for an AL Central crown. Couple that with an open pocketbook from David Glass, and well, that’s how you end up trading for Mike Jacobs and overpaying for Kyle Farnsworth.

The Betancourt trade was when I realized that the Royal still didn’t get “it” (advanced statistical analysis). And as long as DM is the head I think they will continue to be one of the least successful teams in baseball. This was the trade that convinced me I can’t get excited about this team until they embrace modern analysis techniques.

He blew 2 games in that stretch right?

I assume he had a terrible season since he hates playing baseball and clogs the bases with his walks and kills rallies with his home runs.

What about all that time Bloomy’s logged in the OF? You think Mitch Maier could have put up those numbers? I sure as hell do. So basically, Bloomy, a player that should be making the minimum, gets an extra million for us in a horrible year where we should be seeing what we have in Maier. Instead, Hillman and Moore keep picking up crap like Bloomy, Anderson, Freel, and playing it over Maier. I don’t get it.

Maier in just over 200 ABs has .3 WAR, Bloomy in 342 ABs has a -.4 WAR.

The Yuni trade has already been a disaster. He’s already hurt this team’s production. He plays below replacement level, which means we could have replaced him without giving anything away.

As bad as the trade looks, it’s every bit worse.

But, there’s where you are wrong. Many people had strong suspicions and worried that Hillman would fall in love with Bloomy, just like Gload, and play him all the time. I was one of those and I still believe we were right. Due to the injury excuse it is harder to isolate the reasons for Bloomie’s playing time. But, I still strongly believe that even if we hadn’t had the injury excuse, Hillman would have played the heck out of him. Where? That’s a harder question given that Teahen was seeing so much time and seemed to be able to be workable at 2B. So, I think he would have been at SS a lot more. Yes, that’s an injury position also but I really don’t think that the “braintrust” of the Royals ever truly bought into Aviles and they would have displaced him with the gritty “OBP guy” Blomqvist fairly soon anyway if he didn’t appear to be the same guy as last year.

George Brett wouldn’t be a similar GM as Dayton?

Jose Guillen can’t carry Milton Bradley’s shoes in to the park.

And that’s not high praise for Bradley or anything.

Guillen strikes me as the poor man’s Milton Bradley.

Yeah, I think this is quite an understatement. You are right if you mean:

Guillen:Bradley::Bangladesh:Monte Carlo

You advocated for Russ Branyan? What a bust he turned out to be.

Thanks for the memories!

That one was worth a very late rec.

While it is really too soon to know how it will play out, at this point the 2007 draft is disappointing given how much money the Royals put into it and given that Moore did have the second overall pick in the first round. The very preliminary reportcard on the 2008 draft also would be somewhat disappointing. Certainly Hosmer did not perform at all like one would hope the third overall pick in the draft would perform.

Even if the 07 and 08 draft classes pan out I don’t see any of them making an impact in KC earlier than 2011. Dayton can’t count on keeping his job that long if the MLB club continues to play anywhere near as poorly as it has this year.

Insistence on high school draft picks, particularly those with "tools and makeup"

Yeah, I thought about adding Moore back to back selections of Moustakas and Hosmer as well, but then I felt it probably is too soon to just accept these as clear mistakes yet. Everyone who reads the forum knows how I feel about these picks, but I am still hoping I am wrong about them and they will end up being useful major leagle level players by 2011.

Personally, I think if both Moustakas and Hosmer fail to impress at AA (meaning, actually perform at a high level. Not just provide hints that one or two of their tools is developing into a plus MLB-level skill) then the Moore regime will be seen by knowledgeable fans as having no more competence than the Baird regime, despite the extra cash and autonomy Glass provided it.

David Glass is betting YES

That was only one month in. No honeymoon period for you.

At the time I was somewhat oppossed to the swap as well, but I remember thinking it was a close call. The first Moore trade I really came out against was MacDougall for Lumsden and Cortes. Here is what I wrote on July 24, 2006:

My quick reaction is to agree with you. This looks like the loss of one of the Royals few proven assets in exchange for two prospects that John Sickels rated at “C” level before this season began.

I’ll look into the new additons a bit more when I have time, but tonight it looks like a talent drain for the Royals.

Then a bit later…
There is nothing wrong with the pitchers acquired. …they both look like they have potential to make it to the majors and perhaps develop into average, maybe even better than average pitchers. But I give this trade a mild thumbs-down because MacDougal really is a damn good pitcher and I think the Royals could have gotten more value for him if they were set on trading him. His loss keeps the Royals pen in the chaos it has lived in all year. He could have been a stablizing force at the end of the pen for three more years.
 
As far as MacDougal finally coming into his money years, I expect if he finishes this year strong he will look for something in the neighborhood of $700K to $1M for next year. But damn it, the Royals have to accept the fact that they might someday have to pay some player market rate. The point is to stock the team with good players who will help the team win, not save money for some future that never seems to arrive because the team keeps shipping off those players it develops that might actually be part of that future.

I’d have no problem with the Royals paying Mac a bit of money for next year and leaning on him as a team leader. He was one of perhaps half a dozen players on the roster who I think truely was an above average talent. It is not at all easy to replace men like that.

That said, the pitchers that Moore acquired both seem to have some promise and this trade might work out well for the Royals in the end. I am skeptical, but hopeful. If I were a betting man I’d say the odds of this one working out for the Royals in the long haul is about 35%. Nothing wrong with the new guys, just the price paid for them may have been too high.

It looks like I was equal parts insightful and stupid in that evaluation. MacDougal was pretty bad through all of 2007 and 2008. He only is starting to pitch well again over the last three months. Of course neither Lumsden or Cortes did anything at all to help out the big league club during their tenure in the organization. So I guess in the end Dayton Moore “won” that trade in that the Royals spent less money on their end of the lose-lose transaction.

Good one.

Although, this move was kinda evened out when Moore got rid of Gload at about the same time.

I was excpecting something more along the lines of 40%.