Really great take by Mellinger:
My life would be a lot better if my kids blindly trusted me, but other than that I don’t think anyone deserves or should expect blind trust.
Dayton Moore’s time with the Royals is pretty wild to quantify. I would argue that there is actually no better argument to support a GM than “because they won a World Series,” but it’s also true that the run of success is a bit like an island surrounded by stink.
Pairing Trey Hillman and Jose Guillen was a mistake. With the definite exception of Sean Manaea (keyed the Ben Zobrist trade, which helped win a World Series) and the possible exception of Hunter Dozier (might be late blooming into stardom) the draft picks haven’t been good enough since 2009.
The Royals should have picked a path — win or develop — after 2016. That, to me, remains their biggest mistake because it was so plain to see in real time. The Matt Strahm trade has backfired. Lots of bad contracts.
There have been mistakes.
But I also don’t think it’s fair or helpful to pretend that 2014 and 2015 didn’t happen. It’s counterproductive to forget just how bad the organization was before Moore arrived. It’s willfully misguided to lose track of the challenge of building a winning baseball team in Kansas City.
Here’s a quick example. You might know that Kansas City is baseball’s third-smallest market. That doesn’t matter in a cap-controlled league like the NFL, but even with baseball now operating with what is essentially a soft cap it does matter for the Royals. The way local revenues are distributed the bigger money clubs have a significant inherent advantage.
Milwaukee is sometimes brought up as the counter to this. The Brewers play in baseball’s smallest market. They signed Ryan Braun to five years and $105 million, and Lorenzo Cain to five years and $80 million. They are currently 17th in payroll.
But the Royals have been in that range before, too, and besides here is a point you might now know.
The Brewers have not drawn fewer than 2 million fans since 2003. They have been above .500 in seven of those 15 seasons. They have drawn more than 3 million fans three times in that span, including for one team that finished below .500.
The Royals have drawn 2 million fans just three times since 1991. Their attendance for the World Series championship season would be the Brewers’ ninth-best mark since 2004.
It’s also true that the Brewers have not bottomed out the way the Royals have. Their worst mark in the period we’re discussing is 68-94. The Royals will almost certainly fly past that for the seventh time.
So this is not a defense of the organization, or an indictment of fans. You’ve heard me say a million times that it’s not up to fans to support teams — it’s up to teams to be worth the support.
But there are challenges here that don’t exist in a lot of places, and a front office that already overcame those challenges once has earned the benefit of the doubt to do it again.
That’s not a lifetime scholarship, and Moore and his assistants can be fairly criticized for a lot — including what we mentioned here above.
I don’t know if this next rebuild will take. The organization has a lot riding on these pitchers. Some top hitting prospects are struggling in Wilmington. The Royals probably can’t afford for Bobby Witt Jr. to not be a fast-moving star. We could go on.
But they do have some promising pieces in place.
I’m good with seeing how quickly and how well this goes. They don’t have forever, and it’s worth remembering that the last rebuild took traction at the last possible moment — if they didn’t turn it around in 2014 that group would’ve probably been fired.
Maybe they’ll go to the brink again this time. Maybe they won’t make it back safely. But I’m willing to see.
https://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-c ... 19618.html