any of those will be 100X better than Matheny. If he’s selected you guys need to launch SOR(Save Our Royals). The faster you get rid of him, the better your future.
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Same team has back to back 100+ losing seasons and said they arent trying to tank. Either they are lying or Moore is incompetent.
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I wish people would stop equating manager success to wins. You dont evaluate a manager based on wins and losses.
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Moore is incompetent. He's just the kind of guy that wouldn't tank. He won't even beat off.
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Well unless Sherman spends some money which I wouldnt think he would year 1 this team is going to have a nice pick for the third year in a row. Judge Moore in 2 years if PBs statement made today is true in 2 years we'll know it's time to move on.
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He needs 1 of the pitching prospects to become a 1-2 and then a couple middle of the rotation guys. Hell we haven't even had a guy develop into a number 2 pitcher and you could argue that we haven't even developed a number 3 guy either. All of our guys turn out to be 4-5 or bullpen guys.
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And they drastically changed the way they draft pitchers starting a few years ago, which is what has led to this current crop. Can you at least recognize the difference in spending premium picks on guys like Singer and Lynch instead of projectable HS arms like Foster Griffin and Nolan Watson and Ashe Russell? It’s a major, major shift in philosophy and deserves some time to see how it bears out.

There’s also the matter that developing 1-2 type pitchers is incredibly, incredibly hard. Even the organizations that are the best at pitching development aren’t turning them out left and right. TINSTAAPP is a thing for a reason.

Let’s look at the truly elite guys in MLB:

Gerrit Cole. No 1 overall pick, college guy, true ace-dom wasn’t unlocked until he landed in Houston and had is pitch mix adjusted. Perfect pitching prospect who needed a wake-up call and the most advanced analytics front office in the game to turn it around. (Houston, MLB)

Jacob deGrom. Probably the most curious ace. You look at his minor league pedigree and he’s pretty pedestrian until 2014, when it just clicked at age 24/25. (Mets)

Scherzer. Elite draft prospect, took him getting to his second organization before he turned intro a true ace (Detroit, MLB)

Verlander. Do I need to say anything? (Detroit, minors)

Strasburg. Best pitching prospect in the draft and minors in modern memory. (Nats, minors)

Greinke. (Royals, minors and majors)

Thor. Syndergaard has been up and down but still has truly elite stuff and like Cole could develop from tantalizing into dominant with just a slight tweak. (Mets, minors)

Jack Flaherty. Blossomed into an ace this year. Dominant guy with wipeout slider, reminds me a lot of young Max Scherzer. (Cardinals, minors)

Kershaw. Best pitcher of his generation. (Dodgers, minors and majors. Now evolving to his second life as a SP)

Sale. Chicago struck gold with him to the surprise of almost everyone. Needs to evolve now, similar to Kershaw. (Chicago)

Those are 10 of the best guys around. There aren’t 32 aces out there - most like a solid contingent of 6-8 you expect to be leaders and 15-20 who can raise their game and pitch at that elite level.

Even looking at leaderboards from this year, you see leading performers developing in many different ways. My point: developing an ace starter is probably the biggest unicorn in sports, or right there with the franchise QB. Expecting a GM to pop them out even once a decade is expecting too much.

And even with all that said, I’ll agree the Royals have to do better. The new owner just saw firsthand how valuable a strong, consistent MiLB approach and scouting and analytics are (the Indians are probably the best at this right now). Hopefully that message carries over and combines with what the Royals have changed their focus to and produces more consistent results.

I’m encouraged by the 18 class. We’ll start seeing fruits from it this year, I think (though we all should be prepared for rough numbers from AAA due to the trampoline ball and those hitting environments). I’ll ultimately judge Moore on that group.


Agreed that the tale of the tape on Moore is due in 2021/22. If the team isn’t showing positive upward movement by then it will be time for a change in leadership and approach.


They’re not telling the whole truth. Everyone in the org expected 18 and 19 to be rough. They have been.
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Oh I know that they've changed up their philosophy and I'm encouraged by the results. All it took was one draft to go from completely barren, when it comes to pitching prospects, to having a decent amount of solid guys with lots of potential. I'm just hoping it's not a coaching philosophy that is causing our pitchers to flame out or never reach their potential.
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I understand it's incredibly hard to find an ace, but Dayton Moore hasn't found a single true #1 ace type in over a decade of being the GM. So what should be the expectation? It takes 13 years to finally learn their approach at talent evaluation was crap? We should expect to maybe find one ace every 15-20 years?
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Sorry Duncan, but 18-19 were rough because he let the farm system go to complete shit, and wasted 50M/yr on Ian-Gordon-Duffy. Those were MAJOR financial mistakes and small markets can’t worhstand that.


He also blew the Salvy extension but you and I have gone over that already so no rehash needed.


His 16/17 window closed way too soon. Part of its Yordano’s death obv but what did he do right? He:

1. Signed Chris Young which blew up in his face and may have cost a wild card in 16
2. Ditto signing Soria
3. The 17 deadline deal with SD blew up in his face
4. Kept trotting our Herrera in Sep 17 which blew up in his face


DM has done very little right the last 4 years and he needs to be held accountable. I’m tired of the whole “We are a small market and our window closed”. That’s fine but you can go 70-92. Only 4 teams lost 100, we have now done it back to back.
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The Royals did not adjust well to the hard slot and had some particularly empty drafts in 2011-15 (save 2013). It bit them hard.

Moore did not effectively shop in the bargain bin before 2016 and 2017. They had to sign someone like Chris Young, around that price range. It wasn’t a great market for relievers, either. All of the multiyear guys around soria’s price point were roughly the same.

Pete Moylan gave them some good innings, but that’s the only obvious win from 15.

Kennedy in Year 1 was what they were expecting/hoping for. Deal turned down in years 2-3, obviously.

Moore did the 2018 draft class right, but there aren’t a lot of other pride points since then. He’ll be held accountable if he doesn’t get it turned back around in the next few years.


Their approach at talent evaluation and acquisition was good for a big portion of that, though. 07-11, the Royals stockpiled an elite farm system. You can’t sit there and say their talent evaluation has been awful when the first round of it led to a five-year run that included meaningful second half baseball every year, two pennants, and a World Series title.

They did a really shitty job adjusting to the more restrictive draft system and didn’t find a gap that would give them an advantage.

Re: finding aces, I think expecting to ever find one is folly. They’re unicorns.

In all the minors right now, there are maybe 5-10 guys that evaluators would say can be true ace starters.

I just did a quick run through of “ace development” off the top of my head since 2007, thinking about guys who have been elite for more than a single season and who hadn’t developed yet in 2007. Here’s how many teams developed their own aces:

Mets (deGrom, Thor - Thor via trade)
Marlins (Jose Fernandez)
Dodgers (Kershaw)
Giants (Lincecum, Bumgarner)
Rays (Price)
Indians (Kluber - trade)
Tigers (Scherzer via trade, was already a pro but blossomed in Detroit)
White Sox (Sale)

That’s 8 teams out of 30. The Cardinals May have developed one in Flaherty, same for the Dodgers - Buehler, indians - clevinger, Reds - Castillo.

A good front office should develop quality SP. but expecting it to hit on true aces with any consistency is just folly.
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We can't have that kind of measured and reasonable type of discussion here in this thread duncan.

No. Royals need to fire Dayton Moore because fWAR and not finding pitching unicorns.
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The Royals did not adjust well to the hard slot and had some particularly empty drafts in 2011-15 (save 2013). It bit them hard.

After his 13-15 deals - even short term ones like Ervin Santana, Kottares, Blanton, Medlen, Madson - I thought “Man I was wrong about Dayton. Maybe he’s really embraced his analytics dept, hired new scouts, or just matured on the job”

That’s out the window now. The franchise is directionless esp with NED leaving and there being nobody sub 25 on the roster who’s any good, Mondesi excepted.


Moore did not effectively shop in the bargain bin before 2016 and 2017. They had to sign someone like Chris Young, around that price range. It wasn’t a great market for relievers, either. All of the multiyear guys around soria’s price point were roughly the same.


You can miss here and there, but to lose 100+ back to back you need to miss A LOT. I need an explanation why CLEVE is +35 games better than us. 35! Did they ever have to “crash and burn” like this? Their GM isn’t perfect either.


They have no OF. No Kluber, Bauer, Carrasco, Salazar. Jose Ramirez crashes back to earth. Kipnis aged out. But there they are! 94 wins. Gee it’s amazing isn’t it?
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Cleveland was 18-1 against Detroit. Only reason they weren't a below average team this year.
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Why are you so caught up on the 100-loss mark? I would have placed you in the “if you’re going to lose, lose as much as possible” crowd.
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