It's the end of the world as we know it... and we feel... fine?
2018 is a season of transition for the Royals, or at least it is at this point. Dayton Moore is back. Will he swing full into THE PROCESS 2.0? Or will he try to load up again and make some reload magic happen?
Pending Free Agents:
1B | Eric Hosmer | San Diego Padres, 8 years, $144 million ($5 million signing bonus; $20 million/year in Yrs 1-5; $13 million/year in Yrs 6-8 wth player opt out)
Spoiler!
(DI's Guess: Texas Rangers, 6, $118 million)
3B | Mike Moustaskas | Kansas City Royas, 1, $6.5 million
Spoiler!
(DI's Guess: Los Angeles Angels, 5, $98 million)
CF | Lorenzo Cain | Milwaukee Brewers, 5 years, $80 million
Spoiler!
(DI's Guess: San Francisco Giants, 4, $68 million)
RP | Mike Minor | Texas Rangers, 3, $28 million
Spoiler!
(DI's Guess: Los Angeles Angels, 3, $35 million+ $12 million team option
SP | Jason Vargas | New York Mets, 2, $16 million
Spoiler!
(DI's Guess: Baltimore Orioles, 2, $29 million)
SS | Alcides Escobar | Kansas City Royals, 1, $2.5 million
In case I, picks would be #32, 33, and 34, if Alex Cobb of Rays signs for $50 million guaranteed.
Kansas City will likely have 5 of the top 40-45 picks in the draft, and the bonus pool money should rival that of the teams drafting 1-3 in the 2017 draft. This should give KC tremendous flexibility in acquiring talent that otherwise might slip or not be "signable."
2018 Draft Names to Watch
RHP Kumar Rocker, N Oconnee HS, Georgia.
Spoiler!
Possibly goes top 10 but is a big, physical SP with ace potential. Moore and co. will be all over him if he slips a bit and could offer top 10 money at No. 16
OF Jarred Kelenic, Waukasha West HS, WI
Spoiler!
Kelenic is the top prep bat, toolsy OF. Royals would be ecstatic to have shot at him.
1B Triston Casas, American Heritage HS (FL).
Spoiler!
Tremendous raw power, best in HS bats. Royals typically like HS arms or HS bats with "special" tools. He qualifies.
RHP Carter Stewart, Eau de Gallie HS (Ga).
Spoiler!
Another big, physical specimen with huge upside. More likely to be available mid-first than Rocker.
ANY Any, Any (Any). Any current top projected pick who slides for injury concerns. Includes current top prospect prospect SP Brady Singer, U of Florida. [Reply]
Originally Posted by duncan_idaho:
I'm going to disagree with you on that one. At this point, retaining the GM who built it once already, and who convinced Glass to act like a big boy owner... is safer than the unknown. Moore isn't perfect, but there's no guarantee the concessions he has WR in out of Glass and company stay if he does not.
I also don't see 100-loss bad unless they unload Perez and Duffy and etc over this offseason.
It's not a good team or a team that doesn't need some amazing luck to be a playoff contender, but it isn't 2005, 2006, 2007 level bad, either.
This is such and underrated element of a GMs job. It's where John Mozeliak has failed miserably over the last 5 years.
Anyone can just say 'okay boss', hope the scouting director does his job and make sure the payroll checks get written on time. Sitting ass and letting prospects develop isn't good enough.
Sometimes a good GM has to stick his neck out, make an argument to his boss and say 'we NEED to do this'. He has to be able to persuade his boss. My GM doesn't try; we sit on over a billion dollars in franchise equity and approach 9 figure operating profits each year while they refuse to take risks. Moe keeps the checks cashed and never upsets the apple cart so he'll never get fired.
Moore, OTOH, absolutely put his job on the line a couple of times. And the Royals have two pennants and a title directly because of those risks. The 'greatest farm system in baseball history' wouldn't have been enough on its own. Moore risked his owners money and his own job security to make that happen and deserves a hell of a lot of credit for not just that, but also for persuading Glass to run with the big dogs at all.
Personally, I don't believe he's a particularly astute baseball man, but he's done a good job in KC on balance and deserves the standard '5 year grace period' that comes with a title. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud:
This is like saying “Carl will *finally* get the Chiefs over the top this year!”.
The Royals farm is shit, Dayton passed on the opportunity to trade his stars for high level prospects but suddenly, for the first time in a decade, he’s “Going to get it right!”.
Sounds more like rainbows and unicorns than reality to me.
He had the wrong ammunition at this year's trade deadline. The no question #1 player in FA is going to be JD Martinez and he got traded for precisely dick.
Bats just didn't get a market this year. The Royals had pending FA position players in a year where contenders were looking for pitching.
He wasn't going to get 'high level prospects' at the deadline. He had nobody approaching Martinez's value and Martinez got 3 afterthought prospects. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
He had the wrong ammunition at this year's trade deadline. The no question #1 player in FA is going to be JD Martinez and he got traded for precisely dick.
Bats just didn't get a market this year. The Royals had pending FA position players in a year where contenders were looking for pitching.
He wasn't going to get 'high level prospects' at the deadline. He had nobody approaching Martinez's value and Martinez got 3 afterthought prospects.
Thanks for bringing this up. Dane apparently wasn't paying attention to the trade deadline deals that were made. We were always better off hanging on to these guys and taking the comp picks when they left.
Unless he was saying that we should have traded them prior to last season, which is equally stupid, IMO. [Reply]
Originally Posted by lewdog:
Dane has a personal vendetta against those calling Dayton Moore God.
However, I haven't seen anyone call Dayton Moore God after the past two off seasons. He's definitely got chinks in his armor. But putting together those 14/15 World Series teams was a thing of beauty. Back-to-back appearances without a true SuperStar was something I thought I'd never see from a Royals team.
It was very special to many of us and more special than anything the Chiefs could ever do, as my love of baseball is far greater than my like of football.
For those who feel that love for football, can you imagine the God-like status you'd give a Chiefs GM for back-to-back Super Bowl appearances, including a championship? I'm not sure many would care what happened in the following 5-10 seasons if the Chiefs could win a Super Bowl.
And realistically, we all knew this day was coming. When you build a championship smaller market team, players leave. Sadly in the past two years, between injuries and player regression, this similar roster could not repeat it's success. That's not uncommon in baseball and not sure how that falls on Moore?
It's a similar Heaven/Hell or Purgatory question for all of us. I'll take the Heaven/Hell of the Royals any ****ing day. It was a great lifetime moment.
The Royals have been to 4 championship series and won 2 World titles since the last time that shit stain Chiefs Franchise went to and won a SB. Dane has his head clearly and willfully up his ass.
The Chiefs Franchise is one of the biggest playoff underachievers of all time. The Royals, with all their disadvantages, have overachieved. Anyone that ignores that is being willfully ignorant [Reply]
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
He had the wrong ammunition at this year's trade deadline. The no question #1 player in FA is going to be JD Martinez and he got traded for precisely dick.
Bats just didn't get a market this year. The Royals had pending FA position players in a year where contenders were looking for pitching.
He wasn't going to get 'high level prospects' at the deadline. He had nobody approaching Martinez's value and Martinez got 3 afterthought prospects.
Yes. Nicky Lopez is a better player/prospect than anyone the Tigers got back for JD Martinez... and it's not like he's an Uber-prospect either.
Speaking of Lopez, he's had a nice showing in the Arizona Fall League. Was convinced by the hitting coach to switch to a bigger/heavier bat and has made much more high quality contact with it. Small sample, but will be interesting to see if he can continue to show the massive LD% improvements he has in the Fall League over a full season at Northwest Arkansas.
With his speed, base running ability, OBP, and position, if he can be a guy who pops 30 2Bs a year and gets to a .400 SLG, he can be a pretty useful, above average piece.
Originally Posted by duncan_idaho:
Yes. Nicky Lopez is a better player/prospect than anyone the Tigers got back for JD Martinez... and it's not like he's an Uber-prospect either.
Speaking of Lopez, he's had a nice showing in the Arizona Fall League. Was convinced by the hitting coach to switch to a bigger/heavier bat and has made much more high quality contact with it. Small sample, but will be interesting to see if he can continue to show the massive LD% improvements he has in the Fall League over a full season at Northwest Arkansas.
With his speed, base running ability, OBP, and position, if he can be a guy who pops 30 2Bs a year and gets to a .400 SLG, he can be a pretty useful, above average piece.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Above average pieces is apparently the best we can hope for anymore. Moore has still never drafted a true superstar. I give him credit for the championship and pennants that were made possible because of a perfect storm of things going our way, but I have no faith in him rebuilding this team again. [Reply]
If we are going to suck balls for the next 5 years, we really might consider trading Perez, Duffy, and Whit. Literally everyone of any value. Get as much return for prospects as you can to replenish our worst minor league system.
Originally Posted by Dartgod:
Dane, serious question.
Why did you feel the need to shit all over this thread minutes after it was posted? It seems like you've had some kind of vendetta against Moore and the Royals ever since they traded for Cueto and Zobrist and went on to win the WS.
Well, Dane is Dane. Hell, I heard he is still awaiting Tiny Archibald to get the KC Kings to a NBA Final. [Reply]
Originally Posted by BWillie:
If we are going to suck balls for the next 5 years, we really might consider trading Perez, Duffy, and Whit. Literally everyone of any value. Get as much return for prospects as you can to replenish our worst minor league system.
That's actually 8 players. Two of them are awful, awful picks. Two of them were home run picks that helped secure a WS title and another AL pennant (Finnegan and Manaea). Several are still TBD (Dozier, Griffin, Pratto, Vallot).
I've said in the past I don't think the Royals adjusted well to the changes in the draft post 2011, with the hard slotting.
The 13, 14, 16, and 17 drafts are actually solid to really good when you look at them in context and complete. While it's easy to say "Look at the first round picks!" and get impatient with the results, that's not the way baseball works.
Looking back at the more recent draft, it actually gives me confidence they'll do well with the picks that are coming.
I don’t want to argue with you about the Royals because nobody can win an argument with you in this setting. You are definitely the resident expert.
Your correction doesn’t make me more confident in our ability to reach the highest levels again. But it does show how good GMDM is at making trades. I’ll always remember and love GMDM for ‘15; I do wish he was much better in the drafts but as you point out he has made some great trades.
Now if we could forget Ian and some of the recent disaster signings we’d all be happy. [Reply]
