I have to admit: I didn’t see this coming. I realize this is
not the first time I’ve written those words. It’s probably not the second or
third time either.
It’s not that I didn’t think the Royals would play this
poorly in the first third of the season. If you had told me back in March that
the Royals would start the season 21-29 – but only be outscored by seven runs
in their first 50 games – I would have said that’s quite plausible. For the
season as a whole, they’ve basically played like a .500 team, with some bad
luck – they’re 7-12 in one-run games. They’ve played worse than I expected, but
not a lot worse. I could have foreseen this.
But I could not have foreseen this. If you had told me that they started 21-29, I would have
guessed that the primary culprit was that their starting rotation had not lived
up to the hype and the resources put into it. I would have guessed that Ervin
Santana would have relived 2012 all over again, and that Jeremy Guthrie’s
inability to miss bats would have caught up with him, and maybe even that James
Shields had been ineffective and/or hurt.
And here’s the thing: if that had been the culprit in the
Royals’ terrible start, that wouldn’t be the end of the world. Sure, it would
have been a ton of money thrown down the drain, but Santana’s a free agent at
the end of the year. Guthrie’s under contract for two more seasons, but Danny
Duffy is almost back, and Felipe Paulino shouldn’t be too far behind. The
Royals could chalk this up as bad luck, and start fresh in 2014. Sure, they’d
be out Wil Myers and Jake Odorizzi, but they could wipe away the mistakes of
2013, start fresh with another rotation makeover, and be confident that their
young hitters could rake enough to put them in contention.
Instead, we got this.
Before last night’s bizarre, Matheny-aided,
weather-almost-denied victory, the Royals had lost 19 of their last 23 games.
That is tied for the worst 23-game
stretch since Dayton Moore was hired. Yesterday was also the seventh
anniversary of the date Dayton Moore was hired. So SEVEN YEARS AFTER HE TOOK
THE JOB, the Royals are playing as badly as they have played since he was
hired.
And let’s not overlook this point: the Royals are playing
atrocious baseball even though they’ve been healthier than they had any right
to expect. Of the 25 guys who broke camp with them, just one – Jarrod Dyson –
has been on the DL. And while Dyson’s been missed, particularly since he was
just starting to take playing time away from Jeff Francoeur, David Lough has
hit .305 in his absence, so you can’t pin this all on him.
The only other absence has been Salvador Perez, who’s been
on bereavement leave this week after his grandmother passed. And that’s it. The
trainers are doing their job magnificently. The players are not.
Before the year started, I said that I wanted nothing more
than to issue an apology to Dayton Moore for criticizing the Shields trade. Yet
here we are, two months into the season, Shields is pitching a little better
than expected (although Wade Davis has been a disappointment), Wil Myers is
hitting a little worse than expected (although coming on strong lately in
Triple-A) – and it doesn’t matter. It
doesn’t matter because of what I did not foresee: a lineup filled with former
top prospects, a lineup where no one has yet reached his 30th birthday, a
lineup with a pair of 23-year-olds and a 24-year-old, a lineup that every scout
loved and every analyst thought was overwhelmingly likely to improve…that
lineup has laid a giant goose egg.
Two years ago, with the youngest offense in the major
leagues, the Royals finished sixth in the AL in runs scored.
Last year, with an offense that was still the youngest in
the majors, the Royals dropped to 12th in the league in runs scored. Eric
Hosmer had a terrible season. Salvador Perez missed half the year. Jeff
Francoeur was below replacement-level and batted over 600 times. These were all
easily fixable problems. We thought.
This year, with a lineup that is still young but has two
additional years of experience, the Royals now rank 13th in the AL in runs
scored, ahead of only the Mariners and White Sox. The Mariners also can’t
develop their hitters to save their life, and their front office is also in
mortal danger. The White Sox are finally paying the price for a decade of
short-term decisions.
And the Royals are trending downward. They’ve scored 82 runs
in their last 24 games. After firing Kevin Seitzer, who is increasingly looking
like the Winston Churchill of this organization – the one guy who understood
the weightiness of the task before them – because Ned Yost wanted more power,
they’ve hit two homers in their last 14 games. Jeff Francoeur’s ninth-inning
homer raised that total to three in 15 games, which is still one less homer
than the CUBS PITCHERS have hit in that span (thanks, Travis Wood!)
And I hate to say this, but not only am I caught off-guard
by what has happened, but I am incredibly pessimistic about what this means for
the future of this organization. If the 2013 Royals were in a tailspin because
they did a poor job of complimenting their home-grown talent with veterans from
outside the organization – again – that would be a problem, but it would be a
problem with an expiration date.
Instead, they’ve gone from sole possession of first place to
sole possession of last place in 28 days because
of their home-grown talent. The one thing that Dayton Moore and his front
office was supposed to be good at – the one thing that convinced me to start
supporting this front office again after the debacle of 2009 – looks like a
fraud.
If you haven’t read it already, here’s Jonah Keri and I over
at Grantland last week, talking about what happened to the Best Farm System In
The History Of Baseball. The quick recap: two years ago, the Royals had nine
Top 100 prospects in their farm system, including
three Top 10 hitters, the safest type of prospect. Here’s what the Royals
have to show for them:
James Shields – for two years.
Wade Davis.
Two corner infielders hitting .261/.321/.335 and .184/.254/.309.
Danny Duffy, who appears to be hitting on all cylinders 12
months after Tommy John surgery.
John Lamb, who is definitely not hitting on all cylinders 24
months after Tommy John surgery. (In his defense, Lamb’s velocity
reportedly ticked up in his last start, and he’s on a run of 14 shutout innings.
But as I’ve said many times: never trust a pitcher based on how he’s performing
in Wilmington. On the road this year, Lamb has a 5.83 ERA. Unless and until he
starts retiring batters at Northwest Arkansas, don’t bother getting excited.)
Chris Dwyer, who might be a #5 starter one day. Might.
Christian Colon, who HAHAHAHAHAHA
So yes, it appears that I need to offer a sincere apology
for being wrong. But the apology isn’t for Dayton Moore. It’s for people like
Will McDonald, and Matt Klaassen, and Scott McKinney, whose conclusion from his
in-depth study on the track record of top prospects was that a farm system,
even one as outstanding as the Royals’ farm system appeared in the spring of
2010, was no guarantee of future success.
I tried to parry McKinney’s findings, because I have a blind
spot when it comes to the Royals, and in my defense I still think the points
that I raised are valid. But I made one fatal mistake, which one should never
make when analyzing the Royals: I forgot
that I was analyzing the Royals. When it comes to the Royals, Murphy’s Law
reigns: if anything can go wrong, it will. And when it comes to prospects,
anything can go wrong.
I’m convinced that the theory was sound: great farm systems,
more often than not, lead to good teams. I know it can work because I’ve seen
it work. I know it can work because I’ve seen it at work all week. Look at the
St. Louis Cardinals:
Yadier Molina:
drafted by the Cardinals, fourth round in 2000.
Allen Craig:
drafted by the Cardinals, eighth round in 2006.
Matt Carpenter:
drafted by the Cardinals, 13th round in 2009. Despite never playing second base
in the minor leagues, Carpenter has started 34 games there for St. Louis this
year. Amazingly enough, the world did not end. Someone should alert the Royals
that it’s okay to play a marginal defensive second baseman if he can hit.
Pete Kozma:
drafted by the Cardinals, first round (#18 overall) in 2007.
David Freese:
acquired from the San Diego Padres for Jim Edmonds – who was released by the
Padres after 26 games. Freese was a ninth-round pick who had yet to reach Double-A.
Matt Holliday:
acquired for three prospects named Clayton Mortenson, Shane Peterson, and Brett
Wallace. Mortensen and Wallace were first-rounders, Peterson was a
second-rounder – but none of them would have success in the majors.
Jon Jay: drafted
by the Cardinals, second round, 2006.
Daniel Descalso:
drafted by the Cardinals, third round in 2007.
Adam Wainwright:
drafted by the Braves, first round (#29 overall) in 2000. Acquired by the
Cardinals – along with Jason Marquis – for one year of J.D. Drew.
Lance Lynn:
drafted by the Cardinals, supplemental first round (#39 overall) in 2008.
Jaime Garcia:
drafted by the Cardinals, 22nd round in 2005.
Joe Kelly:
drafted by the Cardinals, third round in 2009.
The Cardinals are built around farm system products, or
minor leaguers that they shrewdly acquired for veterans, and the one time they
traded top prospects for a veteran, they just happened to pick the top prospects
who would flop in the majors.
The Royals had the Best Farm System In The History Of
Baseball two years ago; this spring the Cardinals just had the Best Farm System
Right Now. But in two months, they’ve gotten as much production from their
prospects as the Royals have gotten from theirs in two years.
Shelby Miller (#2 prospect, drafted in first round - #19
overall – in 2009) has a 2.02 ERA in ten starts.
Carlos Martinez (#3 prospect, signed from Dominican Republic
in 2010) made just four starts in the minors this year before he was promoted
to the Cardinals’ bullpen, where he’s allowed four runs in eight innings so
far.
Trevor Rosenthal (#4 prospect, 21st round in 2009) throws
100 mph, and in 26 innings in the bullpen, has a 2.08 ERA and 39 strikeouts.
Matt Adams (#7 prospect, 23rd round in 2009) can’t even
break into the Cardinals’ lineup because they’re so stacked with hitters, but is
hitting .346/.382/.577 in 52 at-bats, mostly off the bench.
Pete Kozma (#13 prospect, first round - #18 overall – in
2007) looked like a rare bust for the Cardinals; his career totals in the
minors are .236/.308/.344, and last year he hit .232/.292/.355 in Triple-A. But
called up late in the year to fill in for Rafael Furcal, Kozma hit
.333/.383/.569 and started at shortstop in the playoffs. This year, he’s
hitting a respectable .263/.321/.327.
John Gast (#26 prospect, sixth round in 2010) has made three
starts for the Cardinals this year, winning two of them.
And of course, the team’s #6 prospect coming into the
season, Michael Wacha, who was drafted with the #19 pick last year and raced to
the majors in under a year, debuting last night by retiring the first 13
batters he faced, going seven innings and allowing two hits and no walks.
Meanwhile, Kyle Zimmer, like Wacha a college right-hander, drafted #5 overall
by the Royals, has a 5.28 ERA. In A-ball. IN WILMINGTON, one of the best
pitchers’ parks in America.
And unlike the Royals, the Cardinals didn’t feel it
necessary to trade their top prospect, an outfielder considered one of the five
best prospects in the game (Oscar Taveras) for a quick fix to their pitching
staff. They still have Taveras in the minors, along with fellow Top-100
prospect Kolten Wong, a second baseman who’s hitting .333 with walks and pop in
Triple-A. (And unlike the Royals, the Cardinals show no signs of giving up on
their second base prospect. But then, the Cardinals don’t have Chris Getz.)
So you see, having a great farm system can pay dividends. It can even pay instant dividends. It just
requires an organization that has some ability to convert minor league
potential into major league production. The Royals have shown shockingly little
ability to do so. EVERY PLAYER they placed on the Top 100 list has seen his
career go backwards in the two years since, with the arguable exception of two
players – Myers and Odorizzi – who are no longer in the organization.
And suddenly, you look at the Royals roster and realize that
Dayton Moore has no clothes. He was hired by the Royals SEVEN YEARS AGO
yesterday, and in the seven years since:
- There is NOT A SINGLE PITCHER signed by his administration
who has made a start in the major leagues this year.
- Only one position player signed in the last seven years is
playing every day in the majors without sucking: Salvador Perez. The only other
position players who have reached the majors: Jarrod Dyson, Derrick Robinson,
Mike Moustakas, David Lough, Clint Robinson, Eric Hosmer, and Johnny
Giavotella.
By the way, Derrick Robinson? The guy the Royals drafted in
the fourth round in 2006, paid him $1 million to sign, but never learned to hit
and was designated for assignment this winter? He signed with the Reds, made
their team out of spring training, and in 46 plate appearances off the bench,
has hit .342 with a .444 OBP. It’s probably a fluke. But in seven minor league
seasons with the Royals, he rarely showed enough ability to make you think he
could muster a .444 OBP in the majors even as a fluke.
The Royals have drafted plenty of relievers, and there’s
something to be said for having relievers. But two of the relievers on their
team right now were taken in the first round, one with the first overall pick,
one with the 12th pick. Turning Luke Hochevar and Aaron Crow into major league
relievers isn’t a feather in the cap of the front office; it’s an indictment of
them.
Speaking of first round picks…let’s take a closer look at
them.
2006: Luke Hochevar (#1)
2007: Mike Moustakas (#2)
2008: Eric Hosmer (#3)
2009: Aaron Crow (#12)
2010: Christian Colon (#4)
2011: Bubba Starling (#5)
2012: Kyle Zimmer (#5)
First off, that’s an utterly breathtaking stretch of
horrible play – the Royals had a top-five pick SIX TIMES IN SEVEN YEARS.
And what do the Royals have for those picks? A pitcher with
a 5.39 career ERA as a starter, who might find some success out of the bullpen.
A pair of corner infielders who have suddenly lost the ability to hit. Another
college starter who had to be converted to relief before he even reached the
majors. A shortstop-turned-second baseman who’s hitting .246/.297/.341 in
Triple-A, and is already 24. A tools-laden outfielder who’s hitting
.209/.291/.368 in low-A ball, has struck out in over a third of his at-bats,
and turns 21 in August. A starting pitcher who, in his first full pro season,
has a 5.28 ERA in a fantastic pitchers’ park in high-A ball.
I’m not going to spend too much time on the 2006 pick, both
because no one wants to take credit/blame for it, and because the player that
most deemed worthy of that #1 pick, Andrew Miller, is himself a failed starter
trying to hold on as a lefty reliever. But in 2007, the Royals chose to go the
long route, selecting a high school hitter over the best college player in the
draft – and picked Moustakas over Matt Wieters. In 2008, the Royals chose to go
the long route, selecting a high school hitter over the best available college
player in the draft – and picked Hosmer over Buster Posey.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with selecting a high
school hitter over a college hitter – the study I did back in 2006 showed that
the advantage college players had enjoyed in the 1970s and 1980s has pretty
much disappeared. But you have to get it right. The Royals, to this point,
haven’t got either pick right.
In 2009 the Royals took Aaron Crow, and given the options on
the board, it wasn’t a bad pick. While the Cardinals got Miller at #19, Crow is
probably the best player that was taken between picks 11 and 18. But they then
panicked after he had one bad year as a starter in the minors, turned him into
a reliever, and now are too dependent on their crutch to ever try him in a more
significant role. In 2010 they finally took a college player – only this time
it was a compromise pick that was made at least in part because shortstop was,
at the time, a position of need. They almost took Chris Sale, but they did not.
I wanted Yasmani Grandal, and while it’s not clear how good he’ll be – at least
in part because he failed a steroid test and missed the first 50 games of this
year – he’s a damn sight better than Christian Colon.
In 2010, easily the deepest first round since Moore was
hired, the Royals took Bubba Starling, ignoring the fact that Bubba was nearly
19 years old. Sure, they wanted one of the four pitchers that were taken ahead
of him – but that’s a weak excuse when the four players taken after Starling were Anthony Rendon
(can’t stay healthy, but hitting .330/.473/.625 in Double-A and has already
played in the majors), Archie Bradley (just 20 years old, promoted to Double-A
this year, has a 1.01 ERA and 80 Ks in 63 innings), Francisco Lindor (Gold
Glove-caliber shortstop hitting .313/.385/.438 in high-A ball, is just 19), and
Javier Baez (shortstop – future third baseman – hitting .264/.299/.487 in
high-A ball, just 20).
And that doesn’t count #11 pick George Springer (tied for
the minor league lead with 16 homers), or #14 pick Jose Fernandez (made the
Marlins’ rotation out of spring training at age 20), or any of a dozen other
guys taken in the first round that the Royals would gladly trade Starling for
straight up – and get turned down in a heartbeat.
I’m not going to pass judgment on Kyle Zimmer yet – Zimmer,
at least, has struck out 29% of the batters he’s faced this year. But despite
drafting in the top five of the draft SIX TIMES, the Royals haven’t hit on a
single player yet. Not one.
Meanwhile, the much-maligned Allard Baird, hampered from his
first day to his last by financial constraints that Moore hasn’t had to worry
about in the draft, hit on three of his five first-round picks – Zack Greinke,
Billy Butler, and Alex Gordon. Only Gordon was a top-five pick (although Baird
also whiffed on Chris Lubanski, taken fifth).
There’s still plenty of time for Hosmer and Moustakas to
turn things around, Alex Gordon looked like a bust a couple of years ago, yada
yada yada. The point is that despite more
drafts, despite far more elite picks,
despite substantially more financial
resources than Allard Baird, Dayton Moore has yet to come close to Baird’s
success. And Baird was chased out of town by a pitchfork-wielding mob five
years after he got the job.
You know what else Allard Baird had during his five years as
the Royals’ GM? A winning season. Sure, it was a stone-cold fluke, and yes, the
Royals lost 100 games in each of the other four seasons in which Baird was GM
on Opening Day. But still: at least he had a winning season once in his five
years.
Dayton Moore doesn’t. And he’s had seven. And this winter,
he traded one of the most significant prospect packages this century in order
to jump-start the rebuilding process and win in 2013. And the Royals are 22-29.
A year after they went 71-91, two years after they went 70-92, they’re on pace
to go…70-92.
So I think it’s time we acknowledge the elephant in the
room, and stop worrying about who the hitting coach is. Yes, Jack Maloof
deserved to get fired – if not for his performance, than for his ridiculous comments
to Jeff Flanagan in this column, comments that I said on Twitter ought to end
his career, and – shockingly – actually did
end his career. (Although in retrospect, given how fast the move was made, I
wonder if Maloof already knew he was being let go and decided to go out with a
bang.)
And look, I’m thrilled that George Brett is the new hitting
coach, if for no other reason than it’s a blast to see him in uniform during
the season for the first time since I was 18. And I’m genuinely curious to see
whether he can have an effect. It’s a no-lose situation for him; if the hitters
hit, he’ll be hailed as a genius, and if they don’t, they were already broken
when he got here.
But the problems with this team go deeper than the hitting
coach. They go deeper than the manager, which is why I don’t understand why
everyone is focusing their frustrations on Ned Yost. Is Yost a great manager?
No. But he’s not as terrible as everyone thinks either. Just by way of
comparison, did you see how the Royals ended their eight-game losing streak
Thursday night? (Well, not the very end – only the crazies stayed up until 3 AM
to see that.) Here’s what Cardinals manager Mike Matheny did:
- With a 2-1 lead to protect in the top of the ninth, and
closer Edward Mujica unavailable because he had pitched four games in a row,
Matheny turned to…Mitchell Boggs. Boggs came into the game with a 10.43 ERA, having allowed 20 hits and 14
walks in 15 innings. He was the worst pitcher in the Cardinals’ bullpen, and
maybe in any team’s bullpen.
- After Boggs gave up a game-tying home run to Jeff
Francoeur, and walked Alex Gordon, Matheny replaced him with…Victor Marte, who
had just been called up from the minors, and had a career 7.09 ERA. Worst of
all, Marte was a former Royal. Marte let the next two batters get on base even though both guys were trying to
sacrifice themselves – he hit Alcides Escobar with a pitch, and then threw
wildly to third base on David Lough’s bunt.
- Matheny ordered an intentional walk to Chris Getz. I don’t
care that it worked (four hours later, when Miguel Tejada just wanted to put a
pitch in play and get the game over with). He intentionally walked Chris Getz.
Mike Matheny, it should be noted, managed the Cardinals to
the playoffs last year. I see no evidence (and not just this game) that Matheny
is a better tactical manager than Yost. But he has the horses. Yost doesn’t
have the horses.
Yost doesn’t have the horses because his GM hasn’t given
them to him. And now fans want Yost fired, just like they wanted the manager
that Yost replaced, Trey Hillman, fired. Well, at some point you have to ask
yourself if the problem is the manager, or the guy who hired him, and who hired
his predecessor, and allowed them both to fail?
I’m not calling for Dayton Moore to be fired quite yet, for a couple of pragmatic
reasons:
- The draft begins next Thursday, and as you’ll recall, the
only thing worse than having your draft run by a GM no one has any confidence
in, is having a draft run by no GM at all.
- On the morning of May 6th, the Royals were 17-10 and in
first place. As horrible as this month has been, I’m not sure it’s fair to go
from signing a GM’s praises to axing him on the basis of barely three weeks of
data.
Having gotten the Royals into this mess, it’s fair to give
Moore another couple of weeks to see if he can get them out of it. But if he
can’t…it’s time to acknowledge the reality that it’s time to make a change in
the GM’s chair. Because it will also be time to acknowledge that it’s time to
make a change with the roster, because the
roster just isn’t good enough. It will be time to administer Omaha therapy
to Moustakas and Hosmer. It will be time to send Crow down with them and tell
him he’s a starting pitcher again. It will be time to trade Ervin Santana for
the best possible package, and it will be time to, yes, at least entertain
offers on James Shields.
It will be time to blow up the entire roster, in other
words. It will be time for the Royals to take yet another stop backwards in
order to take two steps forward. Dayton Moore can’t take that step, nor should
he be expected to – if the Royals are going to take a step backwards, Moore
won’t be there when they start moving forward again.
But they need to take a step backwards. And so they need a
GM who can focus on the long term without having to worry about his job
security in the short term. It’s not fair to anyone, least of all Moore, to ask
him to do his job when doing his job right may cause him to lose it.
I hope this doesn’t have to come to pass. If the Royals go
18-9 in June and get back over .500, maybe we’ll look back at this as a bad
dream. But right now, with an offense that can’t score and a rotation of guys
who are, frankly, pitching over their heads, I think the Royals are more likely
to go 9-18 than 18-9.
And if they do, then it’s time. Seven years is long enough.
The Best Farm System In The History Of Baseball was a nice fantasy, but it’s
looking like that’s all it was: a fantasy. If that’s the case, then the notion
that Dayton Moore can ever be a playoff-caliber general manager is a fantasy
too. And so it will be time to give someone else a chance to be that guy.