FanPost

Time For a Reality Check at the K

You couldn't help but notice in last night's game that Houston's wunderkind, George Springer, was blasting baseballs all over the park. Springer's call up was much ballyhooed and the guy has delivered. Compare him to Moustakas and Hosmer and you have a guy who has hit 8 HR's in his first career 155 PA's versus a combined 361 PA's and 5 HR's for Hosmer and Moustakas in their fourth season in the bigs.

Hosmer and Moustakas were every bit as highly touted as Springer if not more so.So what gives?? I guess we could write this off as simply the vagaries of the baseball gods and that not all or even many highly prospects really succeed or even come close to their potential. This led me to ponder the fate of Royals #1 draft picks in the Dayton Moore era and it isn't a pretty picture.

As much as we laughed at Allard Baird for his numerous misfires in the first round (Colt Griffin and Chris Lubanski anyone?) he did succeed in drafting Zach Greinke, Billy Butler, and Alex Gordon. The productivity of these three guys utterly dwarfs the productivity of the Moore #1's.Moore has not drafted a single position player worthy of the phrase "second division regularr" or "decent" starting pitcher.

Ignoring the 2013 draft as just too recent all Moore has to show for his efforts is four complete busts (Moustakas, Colon, Starling, and Mike Montgomery), a replacement level singles hitting 1B (Hosmer), a decent middle reliefer, and a medical casualty (Zimmer). Okay, not all first round draft picks are equal, but Moose was #2 overall, Hosmer was #3 overall, Colon was #4 overall, and Starling and Zimmer were each #5 overall, That's an incredible failure rate. Somebody doesn't know what they are doing. You would think that with five shots at a top five pick you would get at least one excellent player.

Guys it is time to to get over the concept of Dayton Moore as a shrew evaluator and developer of American amateur talent. I know he has that great reputation, but the results belie that reputation.

It is time to turn the page on the Moore Era and get someone in who can get this thing fixed. We are literally just a month away from the James Shields trade count down.

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.