FanPost

An Interesting Take on GMDM, And Some Queries

In a comment in response to this post, Steven Nelson has an interesting take on Dayton Moore's approach to the Jason Kendell signing, and to his approach to players in general: 

[H]e continues to view players – and roles – in traditional ways. He has a traditionalists view of what a catcher is supposed to be. A catcher, in GMDM’s world, is the gritty field general who calls the game, sets the defense, and generally “takes charge”. That’s what Kendall does, and that makes Kendall highly valuable. Power is not a consideration for a catcher; certainly it’s vastly less important to Moore than the other intangible catcher qualities.

So I don’t think that punting power at the catcher means anything other than Moore filling the catcher spot with someone who better fits his traditionalist’s conception of what the position requires.

This nicely and concisely summarizes the problem many RR readers have with Dayton Moore's approach in managing the Royals' organization.   Basically, Moore seems like someone who refuses to use email, or perhaps more apt, text messages, not necessarily because of active disdain, but because an inherent suspicion that the old way of communicating is much better.   

Dayton is a young man (younger than me, anyway), and it sure seems odd that he would resist the baseball equivalent of text messaging, but he must (one hopes, at least) have his reasons.

Here is a query, and I make it snark-free:   is there a rational basis for such Moore's approach?

On a related note, has GMDM (or any other general manager, for that matter)  "gone on the record" with reasons for sticking with the traditional approach?

Finally, is it possible GMDM is fully aware of the nuances of advanced statistics and simply finds them wanting?

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.