A plea to the Royals to DO SOMETHING

To Dayton Moore, and the rest of the Kansas City Royals’ front staff. This is nothing short of a plea from both somebody who writes about the team, and a lifelong fan.

PLEASE! DO SOMETHING!

As a lifelong fan, the last several seasons have been very depressing. Dayton, I was one who called for you to trade away a lot of your talent both at the end of the 2014 season (clearly, I was wrong) and at the end of the 2015 season (arguably I was right), but I fully supported going for it at the deadline in 2017. I have been right about some things and wrong about some things, just as you have. Baseball is hard.

But please, do something. Last off season you made some moves that were perplexing. Chris Owings for that kind of money? Did you really feel he was that superior to any other veteran utility player available? And don’t even get me started on the whole, Lucas Duda/Brian Goodwin debacle. If there were a Hall of Fame for bad staffing decisions, that one would surely be a first-ballot lock.

Do you really expect us to sit back quietly and watch you do basically nothing this off season to improve your team in the long term? You have some payroll flexibility surely, and even if not you have an aging player who is in high demand in Whit Merrifield, and we aren’t going to contend in the next two seasons. Trade him. Trade Danny Duffy. Use what value they have to bring back some prospects to add to our system.

Sign some free agents. Not just your typical bounce-back, low-risk/medium reward signings like Billy Hamilton, Homer Bailey and Jake Diekman, but some actual free agents who could help the team over a longer time frame. There are a handful of outfielders who make a lot of sense as role players. There’s also several mid-tier pitchers available to eat innings.

Maybe your plan is to wait until later in the off season and make offers to players who are still available, and I suppose that is reasonable. But the part of me that writes about this team would REALLY like some moves now. There’s little to write about this off season, and a few moves that were noteworthy would surely be helpful.

I’ve given up on your ability to build a sustained winning team, but is it so much to ask that you at least make it look like you’re TRYING to accomplish something? Right now it doesn’t look like you have any clear plan, and you lack the track record necessary for the benefit of the doubt. Please, do something to give the fan base hope, even if that hope is misplaced.

Thank you.