Who does Dayton Moore trade with the most?

With the trade deadline coming up, I wanted to take a look back in Dayton Moore’s trade history and ask who does Dayton Moore make deals with the most?

I compiled a list of all the trades Dayton Moore has made since he took over in June of 2006, according to Baseball Reference, which you can find right here. I did not include deals for cash considerations or deals where a player was simply purchased, so these are all player-for-player trades. In all, Dayton Moore has conducted 78 trades in just over 13 years on the job.

Moore has made the most deals with the A’s, including last weekend’s deal sending Jake Diekman to Oakland. The Royals were burned by the A’s in a couple of trades in the early 2000s for Johnny Damon and Carlos Beltran, but that hasn’t stopped Moore from continuing to do business with them. And rather than get burned, one of those deals actually helped the Royals become World Champions when Oakland sent infielder Ben Zobrist to Kansas City for minor league pitchers Aaron Brooks and Sean Manaea. More recently, the Royals sent pitcher Homer Bailey to Oakland earlier this month for minor league infielder Kevin Merrell in addition to the Diekman deal.

Second on his speed dial, despite being a division rival, is the Chicago White Sox. One of his very first deals was a trade with the White Sox that sent former All-Star reliever Mike MacDougal to Chicago for a pair of prospects. Moore also received Ross Gload, Chris Getz, Paulo Orlando, and Melky Cabrera in separate deals with the White Sox over the years, and even worked out a three-way trade with them in 2018 to move Joakim Soria.

Interestingly, Dayton Moore has never pulled off a player-for-player trade with the Indians, Phillies, or Yankees. The Indians make sense as a division rival (although that hasn’t stopped him from dealing with the White Sox), but the lack of trades with the Phillies is a bit odd. The last player-for-player deal between the two teams came back in 2001 when the Royals recieved pitcher Paul Byrd for pitcher Jose Santiago. The Royals did make a trade with the Yankees this month, but it was to send outfielder Terrance Gore to New York for cash considerations. The last player-for-player trade between the two former rivals came in 2000 when the Royals got infielder Wilson Delgado for infielder Nick Ortiz.

As far as which GMs Dayton Moore deals with the most, that gets a bit tricky due to the way titles have changed. Billy Beane was the longtime GM of the A’s, but has since been promoted to Club President with David Forst now officially holding the title of GM. The same goes for Theo Epstein with the Cubs and Ken Williams with the White Sox.

The GM Dayton Moore has engineered the most trades with is Doug Melvin of the Brewers and Forst with the Athletics. Melvin ran the team from 2002 to 2015 and the two hooked up for perhaps the most impactful trade in Royals history, in which Moore sent Zack Greinke to Milwaukee for four players, including Alcides Escobar, Lorenzo Cain, and Jake Odorizzi.

If you count the GMs that received title bumps, Moore has worked seven deals with the Billy Beane regime (including deals with David Forst), six deals with Ken Williams (including deals with Rick Hahn), and five deals with Theo Epstein (including deals with Jed Hoyer).

I wouldn’t say there are GMs necessarily that Moore seems to enjoy dealing with the most. The GMs he has worked the most deals with are really the ones that have been on the job the longest. More recently he has worked on a pair of deals with Nationals GM Mike Rizzo in the last year and three trades with Jed Hoyer in the past two years, and he has seemed to work well with David Forst, coming together on four trades in just a few years.